[78-L] Record collecting week 9

[Ken Matheson]

Sory for being late on this one.
70th birthday party and grandkids graduation.
 
Week 9, Record keeping.
 
There is 2 meanings to this one.
 
First, Records are no good to you unless you
know what you have and where it is. You may
have heard, or hear of a song, band, singer that
sounds good, so you look for it to buy it when
all along you have 2 or 3 copies in your garage.
You want to put a special song on your MP3
player so you spend all day looking through
thousands of records to find it.
 
I use MS Excel. It will handle 20,000 or more
entries. I have databases I have downloaded
from the Internet that have over 20,000 entries.
They were not in an Excel file but It converted
them to an .xls file with no problems. My record
collection is about 3,000 songs. I have 2
databases one has artists, song title, record
speed, label, matrix number, condition,  raw
data file number, and location. The second has
song title, artist, matrix number, record location,
raw file number. The first one is all that is needed.
 
The first list is also combined to form an additional
list with all the 3,000 entries. It is sorted by artist.
When I want a particular artist it is right there in a
row. If I want a particular song title I can do a Find
and display it. I know if I have it, if and where I
have it recorded. It is easier if every time you
get a record you want to keep you update your
records
 
Now for keeping records,
 
I use a spare bedroom for my computer, recording
room. I built shelves in a closet for my records. They
are stored on end separated every 10 records. It is
a constant 68 to 75 degrees in there. On very hard
to find records that I like most, I use a new sleeve after
I wash them. All 78s get washed. Some 45s and a
few LPs also get washed.
 
Never store records on a concrete floor, or in an attic!!!
Always vertical. In milk boxes seems to be OK for the
less important ones. If you must put them on a
concrete floor put an old pallet down first. Old pallets
can be obtained free many places.
 
This concludes my record collecting.