This thread is now making me worry, not really about CD storage (around two thirds of my CDs are more or less properly shelved - albeit in some rather unconventional do-it-yourself shelving - and the rest sit around the room in more or less well-ordered piles, but that's often a reminder-to-self about what I mean to listen to in the near future) but about what I might do next time I move abode.

I used to move on average once every year-and-a-bit, but I had fewer CDs then (the last time I moved was 3½ years ago) and it was usually a reasonably simple car or van journey away - either to the other side of Cambridge or the other side of London. Since the next move, when it finally happens, is likely to be away from London and most probably away from the UK, I'm not quite sure what I'll do with the now circa 1200-1500 CDs. I can't imagine wanting to live for more than a few weeks without ready access to at least half of them, and I'm not very keen on taking them out of their accustomed jewel-boxes/digipacks.

For many years I've been wanting to get my CDs properly catalogued. I've recently discovered (and been completely won over by) CDpedia:

http://www.bruji.com/cdpedia/

Once a collection of CDs has been entered (not an arduous job on these cold summer evenings), everything can be displayed, sorted, searched and anything else you can think of. Entering a search for a composer, artist or work can bring up all the appropriate discs. The few pounds it cost has been a great investment. There are alternatives, like Delicious Library, but this is the one which suits R3 listeners. (It's a Mac application, but there must be something similar for PC users. If not, you will never find a better reason to change to a Mac - and there are many!!)

The insurance aspect is one which I had always been concerned about (pre-CDpedia). Some years ago a friend had a burglary and had to try to remember what was in his collection of CDs. What was even worse, the Insurance Company could not see the difference between one performance and another and tried to get him to accept Naxos-priced replacements for them all.

I comfort myself with the belief that CDs are not attractive as an "off the back of a lorry" sale these days, so perhaps a thief would leave them on the shelves. The same ought to be true of hi-fi equipment, in this age when people want ipods, rather than the expensive black boxes piled up in my listening room. There are some advantages to the digital age!

I use an Access database for all my recordings - CDs, hard drives and minidiscs, though older stuff such as tapes and vinyl are still on document type files - it's not worth the effort to transfer them over. I hate to say anything nice about MS Office, but it's very easy to create queries (and reports if necessary) to help you find things eg "radio recordings in last 90 days", "News Quiz on Radio 4" etc. Of course, it means I have to regularly update it but it's a pretty simple job - setting it up wasn't though!

I'll PM you, Anty.

My supervisor has his CDs in IKEA shelving (those CDs he can't fit in his flat live in his office) which look very impressive. I don't think I can really afford to have anything other than makeshift arrangements at present and will be sending a lot of my CDs which are still in Durham straight to my office, along with my LP and cassette collection. As far as cataloguing is concerned, that's something I should really do (especially in terms of my LPs) but seems like a rather big job.

My CDs are everywhere.

A profound lack of shelving means that the vast majority of my CD collection is in disorderly piles on the floor/table/chair/bench/any-other-flat-surface.

When I finally do manage to afford some more shelves (I'm considering building them myself - I've never really done anything with wood or tools before, but, seriously, like, how hard could it be?), I will most likely order my CDs by era, then by nationality, then by composer. 'Era' will, of necessity, be fairly loosely defined, in order to encompass the fact that I have far fewer CDs from, (for example) the 12th Century than I do from the 17th Century. Dividing by nationality means that the French Baroque can be kept separate from the German Baroque, etc.

It seems that Scotts of Stow no longer stock this. However, a quick trawl of the net reveals that it's now being stocked (or something looking remarkably similar and also holding 760 CDs) by Argos! I've just placed an order for a couple to arrive this weekend; having unpacked the discs which normally live in my two cases, there are still plenty of boxes still unopened upstairs and the time has come for matching storage rather than plastic stacking boxes and piles of discs littered around the place!