CD archival - my solution

For those of us still on CD and with an expanding collection, the challenge is either to find huge amounts of space to store the collection, or adopt sleeves, maps or other archival system. Some time ago I adopted the latter, decreasing necessary shelf space from 16 meters to about 4. I use a combination of tyvek envelopes (acid-free, heat resistant and non-scratching) and jazz loft PE sleeves (a soft, safe plastic that does not stick to or contaminate the discs inside). 

It works, but does not look good. So, for the last half year or so, I have been making my own covers, scanning artwork, resizing and printing at dimensions that exactly fill out the jloft sleeves.

The result:

What you don't see on this picture, is the small lettering on the grey spine that allows me to instantly find a disc on the shelf. About 300 of these comfortably fit one meter of shelf space, and the sleeves hold up to six CDs in individual envelopes. I am extremely pleased with the results (after some trial and error), the sleeves look much better than the original jewel cases and about equal to digipacks.

Original cases incl. booklets, digipacks, opera boxes etc are stored in ikea boxes, in the attic.

Would I recommend this process to others? Only if you are prepared to make the investment. The materials are cheap, but the process gobbles ink and therefore is quite expensive - I estimate about 80 cents to 1 euro per sleeve. More importantly, each sleeve takes up quite a bit of time to make. 

Cheers,

EJ