A lot of us are collectors. For those of us who like to read we might have hundreds, perhaps thousands of books. If we like movies or TV shows that we like to watch more than once we might have gathered an extensive collection throughout the years. Today’s book of lists topic is Ideas behind creating a digital database so you can access any relevant information when necessary.

The virtue of having a digital database is:
1. It can be constantly updated.
2. It can be accessed as a hard copy or softcopy
3. Once you create the general format of one list of data you can use that foundation to start documenting an entirely new list of important information.
4. It can help track missing items.
5. In a format such as in Word’s Excel or Works spreadsheet you can create filters and thus list your collection in any particular sequence
6. You can easily search a digital list where looking for something on a hard copy might be easily missed.

For my collection of books I might list:
Book title
Author
Genera (mainstream; action; SF; F; nonfiction; children, anthology, romance etc.
Rating (G/PG/other)
Publish date or signature (If I’m a collector)
Purchase price and from who purchased (If I’m a collector)
Loaned to: who and when)
Type of book: i.e.: if humor or sad to match my mood upon a reread.
Condition of book (in case I need to replace my dog-eared favorite)
A brief synopsis of the story of the book to help me remember the story.
Web links to the author’s web page.
Page length (in case I want a short or long read)
Favorite scenes in a series: what key scenes in what books
Link to artist web page
Web links to articles or fan pages.
Color code for easy visual access of types of books

For movies I might have:
Title:
Key actors:
Movie type:
Rating:
Reviews:
Synopsis:

Additional notes:
Once you create the format of one list of information for books, it could be easily altered for your collection of music.

Everything that I loan out, I put my name on it. When you donate to some charities, they will often send you a bunch of little address tags to get you to donate to them again. I use those to put on the packaging of movies I loan out. I also document when I lent it and to who.

For author name: I might put last name on a separate column from first name in case I want to search by first name. I might also put down any related pen names in case I want to group a certain author and all their pen names in the same section of the list.

If a book is part of a series I like putting the name of the series and what sequence each book is in. This helps me see what books I am missing. It also insures that I read them in the right sequence. By making a hard copy, that I update a couple of times a month, I can go to a new or used book store and compare my list to the books on the shelves and avoid duplications. Many libraries will have book sales of books that have been donated or that have been dog-eared so they can get newer versions. This is a great way to check out different writers.

A great source for titles of a series, or pen names is the site: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/ . If you want to read fiction written by fans of a certain writer, movie or TV show, check out http://www.fanfiction.net.

A good friend of mine gave me a wonderful tip on how to file documents. Usually I put items in folders behind the alphabet that the title of the paper matches the most. She suggested I assign each document a number. The first 25 documents go into the folder 1-25. The next set of 25 goes into folder header 26-50 etc. On a separate list (digital or hard copy) I create titles pages for folders 1-25 and files 26-50 etc.

The wonderful thing about this process is that I can list the article under multiple subjects. Let’s say that there is an article is about compassion. The same article is also about single mothers and Firemen. I want to list that one article under all three headers in case I need one of the three to remember the piece. So I would list it under compassion and under single mothers and under firemen. There is one article but three references. Thus the cross-referencing can help me find my needed document when necessary.
Well there you go a few ideas when you start crating a digital list of your collection, whatever it, or they may be.