Album Discography & Database

This week, I have spent the evenings cataloguing my albums and I'm just over half way through - sheesh, its quite the task!

I never thought I'd bother doing anything like this, but having recently doubled up on a few of CDs (bought in store and relying on memory) I thought I needed a solution.

I buy the odd album off Discogs and recall they have a ‘Collection’ list facility, and more importantly a synced mobile phone App which uses the camera to scan CD/LP barcodes to bring up corresponding database entries. It takes a few swipes to find the correct album version, then press add and its done. Occasionally the App does not bring up a match, or there are so many choices that manual entry via the website is required or easier (only a takes a few clicks). There's a comprehensive listing of CD and LP album versions, but HD downloads are not quite as well catered for yet, although this will improve in time I guess.

The online collection also gives a secondhand value of each disc and the entire collection too, based on Min / Med / Max parameters from the sales pages of Discogs (not accessible via App). A handy facility for insurance purposes - and quite an alarming record of how much has been spent on music over the years. I'll also go through my remaining vinyl and see what they are worth via the Discogs database. I think I still have a few RCA orange and green label Bowie albums, and also a couple of Beatles / Zep / Floyd originals courtesy of family.

The App is pretty responsive, so when out and about its easy to check on purchased albums - the whole point for me. I'm guessing there are better solutions or Apps to do this, namely an Excel spreadsheet for simplicity, but I like the combination of App & website. Well worth checking out, although a lot of patience required for the data entry. A couple of screen shots for ref.

The opening page...

Search page, displays multiple versions - be prepared for hundreds of alternatives for the superstars / popular albums. Just five versions for this late Waterboys album...

Collection view. Quick loading and efficient navigation...