Organizing Your Media

*Originally published on 9/23/09


Movies



There are some hardcore movie buffs out there. I always thought I had a pretty impressive movie collection but there are people who utterly decimate mine. There are people who's DVD collection ranks in the thousands! Heck, there are people who have already acquired more blu-rays than I have DVD's.

Now when it comes to organizing your movie library you actually have a variety of options. You can just put them on the shelf in the order that you pick them up. This works when you're just starting out, but as your collection gets bigger, you'll want to put them in some order to make it more convenient. With a dozen movies, skimming through a randomly assorted collection is no big deal, but if you have a movie collection in the thousands, skimming doesn't become a feasible option. I do this with my DVD's, the cases are stored in boxes, but the discs are in those CD wallets and there is no order for the most part. I'll put all of the seasons of The X-Files in order and the two Ghostbusters movies are back to back, but that notwithstanding, there is no particular order.

The easiest, and most common way to organize your movies is to put them in alphabetical order. This is what I've done with my still miniscule blu-ray collection. It does lead to some confusion with titles. A prime example of this would be with The Dark Knight. You could file it under "D", however as it is the sequel to Batman Begins, you could make the argument that it goes under "B". As it is a Batman film, it wouldn't be that far off. I've read of people who file it both ways. While the First Blood/Rambo series has an odd numbering system, they put the first three movies into a box set that can easily be filed under "R".

You'd think that this would be the be all end all filing system. It's simple, effective and efficient. Some movie goers aren't satisfied with that and take it one step further.

Some movie collectors divide their movies up by genre, putting science fiction, action, and comedy movies each in their own category. This seems like it would be effective. There are plenty of times where you're in the mood for a certain type of movie, with this system you can go right for the category you want and focus your search. This also goes along with video stores categorization. If you're collection is large enough and you file your movies in this way, your room will start to seriously resemble a Blockbuster store.

Others divide their movies up by studio. That's hardcore. I would never go with that system, seems like too much trouble, but others really prefer it.

Every so often you'll come across a collector who takes the box itself into account. Some blu-rays get released in steelbook cases, and some collectors put those in their own section. If boxsets look similar or look nice side by side, people will sort it according to that. I read that the Ultimate Superman Collection looks really nice placed next to the Batman anthology.

Ultimately, you can put the movies wherever you want. For those of us who like to organize and sort our things, it's good to know that there are filing options that suit our own personal style and sense of order.



Comics



You can amass a pretty large comic book collection as time goes on. With new issues being released every week, a person who's been collecting for years will have amassed a collection in the thousands.
Fortunately, comic book stores had the foresight to design boxes specifically designed to hold your comics. You have three options as far as boxes go.

The first is short boxes. It's a rectangular box that holds a couple hundred comics. These are rarely used, but one of these will suit your needs if you are just starting to get into comics.

The most common box used is the long box. It's basically like a short box, but longer. I know that sounds patronizing, but really that's all it is. These hold quite a few comics. You can usually get about 500 in a box, though it depends on how tightly you want to pack them. Most collectors, even the hardcore ones, get by fine using nothing but long boxes, even when they get to the point of using dozens upon dozens of them.

I would recommend using drawer boxes though. They're about the size of small boxes, but they are designed differently. They're a bit more complicated to build, but you can essentially slide one box out of another one, creating a "drawer". These boxes are great for people with large comic collections. While they don't hold as many comics as a long box will, it has the distinct advantage of being able to stack on top of one another. You can stack one long box on top of another, but it makes access to a portion of your comics more difficult. With drawer boxes, you can stack one box on top of another and get access to all of your comics at any time. They are also great as they save space. Floor space is limited, even if you have a house with a room solely devoted to your comics. With drawer boxes, you can stack up to 5 boxes on top of the bottom box, which gives you a lot more room to grow.

Now, how do you sort your comics? Alphabetical is the easiest system. It's what I use. I used to have Action Comics filed under "A', same with Adventures of Superman, however I moved them to S to go with the other Superman titles.

It also gets tricky when one character has multiple titles. Usually it's fine, Detective Comics and Batman usually have their own stories going on. However, sometimes stories crossover. There was one point where Superman had four titles going simultaneously. You would get a new Superman comic and each one picked up where the last one left off. This makes filing difficult as you can read two back to back issues of any comic and miss a whole lot of story. I have them filed by title, so it makes reading back issues a bit of a chore.

The Sinestro Corps War went through both Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps. The comics clearly label what part of the story the issue is, but since I have them filed by name, it requires a bit of digging to get the issues I need if I want to re-read that story.

You also have the option of trades. At the moment, my trades are all in the drawer boxes with the other comics. The exception is my Calvin and Hobbes books, because they don't fit. One of these days i will probably get a bookshelf for the trades. Trades are nice to display and it gives your comic boxes a bit more room for individual issues.

When your collection gets big enough, you'll probably want to divide the comics up by company. I read mostly DC so my Marvel books are few and far between, but when my collection gets large enough, I will probably separate DC, Marvel, Dark Horse etc into their own sections just for the sake of convenience.

I would also suggest keeping track of what comics you have. I have a spreadsheet that lists all of my comics and trades. I also have a printed out list of the comics that I'm missing. Trust me, it will get to a point where you need to do this, otherwise you run the risk of buying the same issue multiple times.

If you want to get into comics, I would suggest you do so for the story. My roommate often says that his comic collection is his retirement account. I'm on the fence. I own an issue of Superman 75, the issue where Superman died back in the 90's. It's still in good condition, so if it does turn out to be valuable, great, if not, that's cool too. Usually, the comics that are hyped up as "collector's items" when they're first released end up being worthless down the line. You can't game the system and you shouldn't buy a comic with the mindset that it will be worth thousands of dollars decades down the line. It's not guaranteed. You're better off buying the comics you want to read.





Books



With every form of media comes a different way to organize it. We've talked about ways to sort your comics and movies, now we come to books. Books are interesting in that, more often than not, you don't really need to organize them per se. My bookshelf back at home isn't really in any particular order. You can usually get by without having any sort of system in place. Sometimes, the eclectic look works for books where it doesn't seem as effective with comics or movies. If you keep all of your books on one shelf or desk, you don't really need to go through the trouble of maintaining a system
If your library is expansive enough that you really do need to sort them all out, you too, have a variety of ways to organize your books.

Where as with movies or comics, you sort by title, the most common method for organizing books is to go by the author as opposed to the book title. You can organize them alphabetically, but with authors putting out several books, the clusters will be easily visible if you are looking for someone in particular, even if there is no order.

If you have several bookshelves worth, then you will want to step up your organization system.

Let's say you have a whole room dedicated solely to your book collection, you can divide your movies by genre. Put all the horror, all the science fiction, and all the classics each on their own shelf. You can sort them by author, or go even farther and divide them by publication date.

Some people even use the dewey decimal system...ha, just kidding, nobody uses the dewey decimal system. Libraries do, obviously, but no person off the street puts that system to use.

You can also use multiple rooms to display your books. Most living rooms have either built in shelves or feature a bookcase of some kind. You can place some books there, depending on what you read, you can put travel books, encyclopedias or other informative reads here. Your fiction can be kept in your room. This makes it easier to just pick up a book that you want to read before you go to sleep.

Books, more than most other forms of media, give you a lot of options as far as ordering goes. It's unique in that it's not even particularly necessary. Should you want to keep your books in order there are several ways to go about it.





Video Games



Video game collectors do a pretty good job of building massive collections. This is especially notable since games are the most expensive of all the media that we have covered. A movie costs $20 to $30; a book costs about the same, though paperbacks are much cheaper; comics are only $3 to $4; video games cost about $60 a pop. Not only are the games themselves more expensive, but you also have to buy the consoles so you can play the games, it's not a cheap hobby that's for sure.
It's interesting that most gamers don't store their classic games in their box. Often times, you'll see a gamer's shelf filled with Atari, Nintendo, and Sega games, but the game itself will be on the shelf. What they do with the case, I don't know. I understand this with the Nintendo games as that was just cardboard, but the Genesis games had nice cases. I don't know if I'd ever store my games like that.

Also, keeping the games in their case makes the need for end labels moot. I haven't come across a game where the title wasn't displayed across the side of the case. Putting the game itself on the shelf, end labels become a problem because, as the Angry Video Game Nerd has pointed out, no end labels means you have to pull each game out to see what it is.

This became moot when games were transferred to disc, you need the case now in order to keep the game in good condition. The cases are also much slimmer, saving shelf space.

Our entertainment unit has a plethora of drawers, we use them to store mostly accessories, but a few of them also have games stacked in them. There is no real order, you just have to dig around to find the game that you want. The cabinets and alcoves also lend themselves to game storage. Many of the larger units have sections, so you can divide your games up by console.

If that space is already accounted for, a DVD shelf will work just as well. The cases are about the same size as a DVD or blu-ray so there's no need to make things more complicated then you need to. They also have sections so you can divide the games up by console. If you have only one console than organizing them becomes that much simpler.

Shelves are getting bigger and bigger. People really love collecting stuff and putting it out for display. As such, you can usually store your games on the same shelf that you use to showcase your movies.

Unless you're a hardcore gamer, you can get away without putting any structure into your gaming storage. You can keep them either on top of a smaller shelf, like I do, or you can even put them on top of (or right next to) the television. If you've been gaming for years and have a schmorgasboard of consoles, you'll want to try to implement some sort of organizational system to your games, otherwise you will spend more of your time looking for games than actually playing them.