I have an problem in managing my music collection. First time I
already print all my music collection in a paper and all song is sort
alphabetically. This is fine. But when I get a new song, I want to add
it to my catalog I have to reprint it all to the paper again to enable
me sort it alphabetically. Do you know any office stationery tools
that enable me to manage it well ?.

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Request for Question Clarification by cynabun-ga on 20 Nov 2002 19:33 PST

What software program are you using?

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Request for Question Clarification by vinods-ga on 20 Nov 2002 21:02 PST

Hi, 

I have found a very good tool for managing my music collection. 

If your music is on CD, you just have to place the CD in your CDROM
drive of the computer and the program will automatically search the
Internet music database at CDDB and retrieve the information about the
Album, Performer, Song list and store it in your computer. There are
various ways of getting reports generated by the program. YOu can also
export the database to a program like Microsoft Excel and do further
sorting there. The latest version of CDTRUSTEE catalogs even MP3 files
without requiring you to type in the information.

The program is called CDTRUSTEE. For music in other media - like Tape,
and LP, it is possible to find the information from the database at
CDDB and download the information to manually enter it into the
CDTRUSTEE database.

You can go to [ http://www.base40.com/ ] to take a look at CDTRUSTEE.
A free trial download is available there.

You can also go to [ http://www.freedb.org/ ] or [
http://www.gracenote.com/ ] to access the Internet database of music
on CD. You just have to enter some basic information into the search
field, like album name or artist name and it will show you whatever
information is available on the database.

If this information is okay, please let me know so that I can post it
as an answer to your question.

warm regards
vinods-ga

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Clarification of Question by rudydarwin-ga on 20 Nov 2002 23:07 PST

Hi,

The problem I have is not in managing music collection in my computer.
But the managing my music collection in printed paper.

Let imagine I have 4 song printed on paper.
A1 - Take On Me
Bon Jovi - Bed Of Roses.
Gun's & Roses - Live and Let Die
Metallica - Enter Sandman

Then I buy a single song title
Eminem - Cleaning Out My Close

I want to insert "Eminem - Cleaning Out My Close"
into the printed paper, so the list become:
A1 - Take On Me
Bon Jovi - Bed Of Roses.
Eminem - Cleaning Out My Close
Gun's & Roses - Live and Let Die
Metallica - Enter Sandman

The easiest way to do it is to print it again and trash the old one.
But now my music collection is around 40 pages. If I need to insert
one title
I have to remove 40 pages. For me it is wasting paper, and toner. 

My question is Do you know a stationery tools that enable me to insert
it without thrash the old one, and reprint all my music collection
again ?
If the media isn't paper it is fine.

Best regards,
Rudy Darwin

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Clarification of Question by rudydarwin-ga on 21 Nov 2002 22:23 PST

Hi, maybe the product i'm looking for not yet in the market, the only
solution is by using card catalog. Cynabun, I'm interested in your
unorthodox method for creating catalog cards using MS Word.

Best Regards,
Rudy Darwin

Dear Rudy,

Unless you are willing to buy a personal cataloging system that will
produce cards try this...

Using MS Word or any word processing system that will create labels,
and set up a Mail Merge Program for creating sheets labels. In Word,
you can customize the fields to reflect the information for your
collection. Depending upon the how you want to store you "catalog
cards" (ie. in a recipe box, rolodex), select labels that are
approximately that size. (I recommend shipping label size.) Once you
have completed the mail merge process, you can either print your
labels on heavier paper and cut them out. If you are scissor
challenged like me, you can print them out on adhesive labels and
stick them on 3 x5 cards. After you have this set up, you can just add
CDs to the Mail Merge by editing your data source; printing out the
last page of labels, and adding the new card to your catalog.

I hope this made sense. It is much easier to do then explain. Please
request clarification if you get stuck and we'll walk through it. It
is not very sophisticated, but it works without the extra expensive of
new software.

Good Luck and happy cataloging

cynabun-ga

The classic design for this problem is a card catalog.  If each record
is on a separate card, it is easy to insert a new card in its proper
place in order.  The software you are using may not be able to print
cards, though.

you might want to try leaving space on each page for a few extra
entries. that way, if you need to put information for another song or
album in your records that would fall on that page alphabetically, you
would only need to reprint that one page. even if that one page
"spills over" due to a large number of entries needing to be put in
that alphabetical range, it should only necessitate 2 pages being
reprinted, since the next page would have extra space as well. this is
not a perfect solution, but perhaps it would be useful to you.

I would have to agree with efn-ga, card Catalogs seem to be your only
option if you want to maintain a print copy of your collection. If you
are interested I can offer you an unorthodox method for creating
catalog cards using MS Word. This method worked for a small library
where I volunteered. Please let me know if you are interested.

If you don't want to use cards, how about having your printout set to
start printing on a new page for each letter of the alphabet?  That
way, when you insert a new song, you will at worst only have to
replace all the pages for that letter.  You can keep the printouts in
a looseleaf binder, so you can insert and extract pages at will.