I think there needs to be a perfect blend of digital and physical. Have the CDs, store them in some boxes or whatever, but put them all on an mp3 player first, so you always have them without having to carry them. But then when you need to know the producer or a song or see the cover art, it's right there!

We're going through a similar dilemma at our place. I just bought a couple huge CD storage booklets and am halfway through the practice of removing them from their jewel cases to put in the sleeves (it's taken a mighty bit of organization first, though). But before I got too far, I started looking into what to do with the jewel cases after they're empty. Turns out it's a pain in the arse to recycle them, and my green heart won't let me just toss 'em in the trash. Sure, I can reuse them, but am I really planning to make hundreds of mix CDs in the next few months to make this worth it?

Sigh.

Anyhow, back to your question, Erik. I think tangible music is still highly relevant. It's more stable for sure (how many iPods have you gone through?). And I can't help but wonder if it really does sound better.

I am going through this too! There's one wall of my apartment (and a lot of nooks and crannies) that are overflowing with cds... but still I love the cover art and reading the liner notes. It's still quite visual for me. And even though I don't get to do it as often as I like, I still get an odd joy out of sitting in front of it and randomly pulling things out and rediscovering things... I don't think I could do that with just digital things. It feels so accessory that way.

I know, right? Liz, I'm so with you. I am at the stopping-point of this project where I have to actually decide: Toss all the extra stuff that comes in the jewel case, and save only the disc and the insert, or somehow find a way to cram it all into each pocket of this binder...

All that said, there was a couple months where I was living on couches and had all my cds in boxes in storage... and it was kind of liberating.

I think the next thing I'm going to try is some of that super sexy fashionable danish storage that kind of classes it up a bit and makes it more look like artwork and a library than some back room of a record store. I do want to digitize it all so that it is available for shuffle discovery as well.

So, I guess both? Which requires more time and more room. Sorry about that.

With all the moving I've done in the last 10 years, it always sort of pains me that the biggest chunk of my boxes are just those with all my CD/cases. When I originally moved to the West Coast from Boston, I ditched the cases and tried to go with the binder route, but I decided I hated the binders sooo much (and trying to put 1000 CDs in binders with liners is impossible and expensive ... I even tried to get a folding file just to keep all the liners, but then ... geesh ... I was in real audiophile nerd territory).

I think what I might try to do is compromise. I'm sure of my 1000 CDs, I don't actually listen to many of them regularly, so they might be candidates to be ripped and removed. Then I can whittle down to a manageable size without getting rid of my poor beat up all-paper case for Achtung Baby or my signed copy of Tanya Donelly's Sliding and Diving. Slowly, I'll move into the 21st century.

Do you live close to an Ikea, Erik?

Weekends can be baby boomer hell at one, but they should be able to accomodate your demands without being too terribly expensive.

ChrisB @ 7... you'd be surprised about the availability of good CD shelving at IKEA. I've looked and most is either too small or made of particle board "beaver vomit" which I hate with the fire of a thousand suns. Once you get out of particle board, IKEA is as expensive as anyplace ...

in the last year, i've been thinning out my cd collection by taking 30 or 50 at a time to used cd places (in fact, i unloaded 30 this weekend... if anyone is looking for salif keita's cd's - easy street qa). i've been taking non-essential discs, things i don't listen to often or at all, ripping them if there is anything good, then selling them. i've managed to keep my cd collection under 1500 doing this.

vinyl - if anyone is a carpenter / miracle worker - holla at me. my non-essential records are in boxes and will probably remain there until i become independently wealthy...

Actually Erik -- this is what I REALLY want to do to solve the dilemma.

Go see all the coolness here: http://radiokhartoum.com/shelving

To me, this set up is absolutely HEAVENLY. It can be customized to space / configuration of the music collection. There's different depths (which is a nice visual effect) and I love the way the vinyl is in there that you can play record store. And there's even PDFs to walk us through the construction. Now all I need is a garage and carpenter tools.

Is there some shop class that would like to make this for me?

And Alexander (the mastermind behind all this... and of the Radio Khartoum - Hepburns, etc.) is right... the marshmallow would be a heavenly option as well.

I can't stop staring at that.

*Sigh* ... If only I had the space/money for that top setup, Liz. I'll have to wait for that lucrative faculty job (ha!)

Mmm, porn.

I had a similar problem, Erik, and, honestly couldn't see myself even shelling out tons of money to house my beloved CD collection. I have about 750, and, somehow, ran across this company, Boltz. I don't know how to make this picture show up, but here's an example.

http://www.boltz.com/tours/cdGallery/images/600x3.jpg

They're relatively cheap, insofar as massive pieces of furniture-like things can be, and, if you're down with the contemporary/industrial look, they actually look pretty cool.

Wow, those metal racks are cool ... Thanks (the) Grim.

I am LOVING Liz's shelves. They're gorgeous

Why not ditch the discs? Keep the liners and liner notes, if you want; for some obscure bands, that information (gasp) may not be available online.

A couple of questions I'd consider when thinking about switching from optical media to magnetic drive:

1. What format should the data be transferred as, assuming you want the transfer to be lossless? (You can always make smaller mp3s as needed.) FLAC? Something else?

2. If you're going to keep all your music on one hard drive, you really can't risk losing it all to a head crash. You have to have at least one, and preferably more backups, which means you'll need to buy two or three big hard drives, and you'll have to remember to backup your library on a regular basis. Durability is obviously a huge advantage of CDs.

It's too bad that digital music sold online doesn't yet match CD quality; it forces us all to keep buying CDs, even if we'd rather go discless.

(BTW, @2: The damage caused by jewel cases is more in the making of them than in the disposing of them. Don't worry, they probably won't damage the environment, or decay at all, for centuries.)

@17 - Yeah, I've been worrying about the double-headed monster of transfer quality loss and storage safety. I haven't been horribly diligent in backing up my current library or saving in a lossless format ... both things I should really be doing. I think I'm headed towards terabyte territory ...

move to portland and buy a house plenty of room for cds.

oh and those shelves alexander had built still ended up costing him $4000!

just throwing it out there: we should have a listening contest to see if anyone can tell the difference between 192 kbps and FLAC.

on the backup tip, for music i've produced, i have two sets of backups that i keep in two different locations at all time in case of fire. unfortunately, i'll probably have to re-burn some of the pre-2000 cd-r's because the phthalocyanine seems to be chipping away on some of them. danger!