I was listening to an old edition of Radio 4's Open Book* this morning and it had an item about what can probably be called "obsessive" book collectors eg people whose houses are so full of books that there isn't room for any more. Solutions such as throw away one book every time you acquire a new one were being suggested. I used to collect both books and CDs until I took voluntary redundancy some years ago and had to stop buying both for a while. That broke the habit for me and I no longer "collect" either, although I do buy CDs and books from time to time of course. I'm certainly much more of a collector of recordings I've made myself, usually from the radio, and the advent of enormous and cheap external hard drives makes it very easy to hang on to far more than I should do.

(*The fact that I've still got this programme, which was broadcast on 13/10/02, indicates that I do find it quite difficult to delete a recording, once made )

What are members' collecting habits and do they sometimes worry that they're getting a little bit out of control?

A very recognisable story to me, Andy. Many thanks for sharing.

I stopped "collecting" books about half a year ago. Books do furnish a room and I don't see the point of buying a new book when you still have many unread books in your house.

There was a time when I recorded almost every interesting radio programme. Well, interesting... Why on earth did I record John Mayor's History of Cricket (Book of the Week on Radio 4 a while ago)

I noticed a year ago that I record many programmes but I don't listen to them very often. Nowadays I only record really important things.

I don't buy many discs. I already have a lot of discs and gramophone records. I have almost everything I regularly want to listen to. I never liked shopping, but I know a few nice places for music and literature. I sometimes order a book or a disc via the internet. That's all.

With great difficulty! 
(Note to self: must proff reid postz b4 presing submitt buton)

I don't really collect anything obsessively, but I do have a rather ridiculously large collection of concert t-shirts. I've been to over 150 rock concerts and bought a t-shirt at every one where they were available. I once saw a band four times on one tour and bought a different design at each gig. I saw them seven times on their next tour and ran out of designs before the end -- no, I didn't buy two copies of the same design, but I was tempted! (Ok, maybe it is a bit obsessive  )

Basically, I own more t-shirts than I can wear in a year. Because of this they tend to last a long time... at a gig on Friday I wore a t-shirt from the same band's tour 20 years ago. The t-shirt was actually older than the person who went with me 

Is there a difference between "regularly acquiring books and/or CDs over a long period of time and therefore having quite a lot of them now", and "collecting"? Because I've always thought of myself in the former category rather than the latter. (Although I think I probably do "collect" old LPs of Polish and Hungarian new music, because I buy these relatively indiscriminately when I see them.)

There's also the inability to not acquire, discrimination or not - been guilty of that a few times 

I'm beginning to understand why you have that avatar, Reiner.

Well, I don't think anyone here collects old postcards or I might have got more than just one reply to my Postcards thread! 

I used to collect lots of things when I was young but not so many now. British coin collecting's not the fun it used to be - as I mentioned somewhere else, you can no longer experience the thrill of being handed a Victorian penny in your change on the bus.

My 12 year old collects cats' whiskers - and I came across my childhood collection the other day! (I wish I could throw things away )  Having at last accepted that Tooth Mouse does not really exist, Little R demanded to know where all her and her brothers' teeth were kept...she now has that collection to treasure. It's not so much the teeth that are interesting, it's all the amusing little letters she and her brothers wrote to Tooth Mouse from when their first milk teeth fell out right up to the last molar lost, explaining which tooth it was and how it came out, including a number of playground accidents described in gory detail...