LP collection management...what do you guys do?

I wrote my own in Microsoft Access. I primarily collect Jazz. If I were doing Classical mostly I would do it differently because I would want to know composer, conductor, symphony/orchestra, soloists, etc. Classical is much more difficult to keep track of. I basically use a lame method there of Composer, if that's what the album is primarily focused on, or conductor/symphony/soloist if that's the focus. For some that's not so straight forward, but for me there is a reason I bought the disc and that's how I catagorize it.

On another note, how many people do you know that sort their albums alphabetically by FIRST name? I have found many people that do this, and I can't figure out why. I guess I'm too used to phone books, look up by last name first right?

I pay a librarian to catalogue them for me every few years. First time cost me lobster and champagne, or about $100. Then I married her. Now it costs a whole lot more.

Reading your post I get the sense that your question is not so much "how do you keep track of your collection" but "is there a method to determining what you have, what you want and if the former should fund the latter".
The answer to this depends on how you view your collection. For some they want a historical collection, certain records will be representative of certain movements within music. Some of these are more historical markers than they are listenable. Others want a comprehensive collection but oriented to a specific genre or artist. The Beatles collectors, the punk collectors etc. Others take an investment point of view and as rare or limited editions come out they buy multiple copies whether they need them or not. This oftentimes is again limited by genre.

So in the end it comes down to how you view your collection. I myself have a few records for "nostalgia" value. However if I need the money to fund current purchases it isn't too hard to weed a few things out. This is easier to do with CD's than it is with LP's because it's harder to sell LP's and get any money out of them. So is the trouble worth it? To me not generally. As I get older however the trouble of moving all this stuff gets tougher and I have been thinking about cleaning things out just for the sake of size. But then I have a couple thousand records and about double that in CD's. I live in a studio apartment and I collect books as well. I don't foresee myself settling down anytime soon so the space aspect gets tough.

So only you know the answer to your question but these are some of the styles of thinking that go into it. And with classical I have quit thinking comprehensively. I realized that I was never gonna be able to listen to it all and that I wasn't going to like it all anyway. So I have scaled down to a few composers and works that I really like and want to get more intimate with. For instance I have 8 different versions of Bruckner's 8th Symphony. This way I get to know the work and the multiple interpretations help that. Do I listen to all Bruckner's symphonies? No, I have heard them all but concentrate mainly on the 4th and the 8th. For Mahler it's the 1st, 5th, 6th and 9th. I listen to Schubert leider but find his symphonies uninteresting etc. This comes down to taste and how you want to spend your time. Again, it doesn't hurt me to have some LP's up on the shelf but if needed the money or the shelf space then I think it would be worthwhile to sell some choice items to fund some future purchases.

Try CD Trustee located at www.base40.com. The professional series has one of the most creative ways to manage CDs and LPS.

Aceto, try divorcing her. It will cost you much more. :-)