What is the best way to organise a collection ? by artists, by composer, ...

I would like to understand how people are classifying their vinyls. Thanks

I think I'm like most people. If the disk is primarily works of a single composer, then it's organized by composer. If it's a disc denoted to a specific performer doing works by multiple composers, then it's by performer. This is pretty much how every Classical Music Record Store (the few that still exist) organizes their offerings. Sometimes opera is separate, for me it's not.

Perhaps I'm the odd one out, but I sort according to:
1st: Record Company
2nd: Country
3rd: Catalogue number
4th: Year

I know it's not optimal for finding a certain composer or performer, but it's so neat to flip through my DGG and watch the sleeve design change over the years...
If I then need to retrieve a recording, I just go to my collection here on Discogs and search for it!

It's always interesting seeing how everyone has their own preferred way of sorting their collection. For me, everything is by composer A-Z. Then for recordings with 2 composers or more I place them after the Z's group by whichever piece I prefer. When the record has a big mixture of composers and pieces I go by instrument.

I mainly organize them after composer, but if it an artist I have many albums by, I put them on artist

Style (opera, chamber music, symphony, concerto...) then composer

Thanks for your answer

I have only a small collection of classical / academic music (maybe 500 CDs and box sets), organized in 3 shelves: roughly pre-1950, post-1950 and other academic experimental stuff, finally box sets. the shelves are then sorted by composers.

If you have a larger collection, the question no longer arises. then databases like here e.g. discogs are useful to keep track of the collection. so i have the collection under control according to all search criteria and new items can be classified easily.

Different sections for my classical CD collection, the larger portion of my entire music collections:
1. Early music (until JS Bach including him)
2. 'Classical' (after JS Bach until c. 1950)
3. 'Contemporary' (c. 1950 onwards)
4. Opera (all periods except 'Contemporary')
5. Portuguese

Each section is organized mainly by the composer with this ordering of works: choral-orchestral, orchestral, concerto, chamber, instrumental, choral, lied.
Multi-composer releases are grouped, under their own section, by the principal musician: conductor, singer, ensemble, or instrumentalist.

Alphabetically by label and then title of cd.

1. Performer/soloist and/or 2. Orchestra and/or 3. Conductor. I only sort by composer when the previous is unclear or too generic; anything from Naxos (or box sets of one composer, various performers) gets sorted under the composer. I don't think there is an optimal sorting rule for classical music, just preferences.

My LP collection is cataloged according to the composer (surname), the titles attributable to several composers are cataloged separately in the Various Authors section at the end of the main section.
For CDs I don't have a cataloging method since they are contained in boxes (I mainly listen to LPs and streaming music).

I like to randomly strew records round my home, it makes for interesting discoveries when you least expect them and you don't need to bother filing everything in order. Win win.

By composer, then by the performing artist if it's a compilation. I used to sort by label, which looked really cool but it was more of a hassle for me. I have a separate section for the compilations that have multiple artists.

My system is quite detailed but probably as flawed as anyone's owing to the nature of reality and my own inability to follow the rules. I kinda like both waran2006's vision, of having everything indexed here, perhaps with, say, a shelf location field for finding stuff - unfortunately for that to happen I need to add a LOT of releases to Discogs still, since probably 75% of my 1000ish classical records aren't yet here. I equally like foogoo's approach since (a) I'm messy and (b) I also love the serendipity.
What I actually do, though, is some hybrid of what other people do. I organise LPs by the first composer on the disc (which is more often than not the primary composer where there are multiple), with occasional exception for performers in which I have a particular interest. Then within the composer I basically organise in order of scale, with solo, duet, trio...nonet etc and on to ever-larger chamber works; concerti next as they feature a "solo" so I reckon they bridge nicely; and then symphonies (and ballets and odds and ends). Within these I go keyboard, strings, brass/wind, rather inconsistently, but that means I'll have all the piano concerti then, say, violin concerti and so on. A harp and flute double concerto can just take its chances. And then if we still need sorting within this we can look at date of composition/opus number. And of course we often have multiple recordings of the same piece because you can't have too many great interpretations of some of them, at which point we bring Random into play.
Box sets are just by composer, I don't have enough per composer to require more plus the spines are a lot easier to read! Operas and choral works tend to be in the box sets, but if they're LPs then I think I stick them at the end.
Inevitably there are some left-overs. Bits of ancient choral music, anonymous medieval pieces etc. They go at the end and I leave it at that!
My jazz section follows a similar approach, but with a touch more gnosticism, and sadly nowhere near as many records.

A quick oversight of the answers to the question above did not let me find my way to answer this:
"Classical records" I sort in epoches: Medieval (if any), Renaissance, Manierism, Baroque, Wiener Klassik, Romantik, Impressionism, Modern, Contemporary would be the right running order. If thre is many (like romantic composers, I sort these alphabeticly, Brahms, Chopin, Delibes, or sometimes depending on the country.

I have a collection of around 18 hundred CDs, out of which a large majority is Classical (≈ 80%). So, for non-classical ones, I don’t have a fixed approach or a very subjective one.
But for Classical music, I need some organization.
First rule: a disc is not shelved unless it is cataloged in the Discogs database or until I do it myself.
I don’t like the alphabetical order as a main criterion; it makes no meaning to me. I like the idea of organizing by Style, but it is not a clear enough definition; styles evolve and overlap. One composer may create in different styles along a lifelong carrier.

So, I came to the radical model of storing all classical records (from early to contemporary music) by strict chronological order of Composer's birthdate; i.e., horizontally along 14 Ikea shelves aligned as a single row from left to right and down the 12 rows.
So, in the upper left cell of the shelves (1,1) stand the elder composers and bottom right, the youngest (14,12).
If several composers are included in a release, I will select the one for which I bought the recording or the one with the longer playing time and add a note “Shelved as xxx” in the collection. Composers born in the same year gently coexist one by another, with no further ordering rule.

It is fun to be systematically exposed to a composer’s contemporaries when I take a CD out of its location for listening, even if I am often obliged to figure out when the composer was born before I can locate the CD I’m after (I use discogs for that). It puts it all in a kind of historical context.
I often let the “Random” function of discogs collection decide what I would hear next; and then, sometimes, initiate a journey to music by other composers of the same times. That also creates gratifying opportunities of serendipity.
I admit it may look a bit twisted, but it's good fun ??

Can't say that I've arrived at an ideal solution, but here's what I'm currently experimenting with for my collection of roughly 4,500 classical LPs:

Main collections
Classical (Baroque and later) and early music (pre-Baroque) are divided into two collections arranged alphabetically by composer. This works well for browsing through the collection, requiring some modification for these scenarios:

Composers, such as Beethoven, with large composition catalogues
Approach: Order works by solo instrument, ensembles (duets, trios, quartets, etc.), concertos, orchestral works, symphonies, and so forth within the main alphabetical collection (above).

Releases featuring two composers
Approach: Catalogue in the main collection under the first composer listed on the release. Preserves the ability to casually browse the collection for the first composer, but it's then necessary to use Discogs to find the same LP within the collection for the second.

Releases with three or more composers
Approach: Capitulate, and file separately at the end of the two alphabetized collections. Releases like recitals, Richter plays…, A Bernstein concert, An Evening in Vienna, etc. are ordered by artist. Preserves the ability to casually browse through these releases, but requires using Discogs to search for all instances of these smaller works as there are often other performances of the same within the main collections (and filed under different composers).

—

My main goal is to preserve the ability to casually browse through the collection so that I periodically stumble across works that I have forgotten. Multi-composer releases complicate this—but I've tried, as much as possible, to preserve the browsing experience.

For digital music I find that it is easy to search for and find any work within my collection—but need to know the piece for which I am looking. The result is, unlike my physical collection, that I rarely stumble across something new and fall into a pattern of listening to the same performances.

It's a bit like shopping for groceries online—great for known item searches when you already have a recipe and know exactly what you want… but lacks the kind of inspiration and serendipity that physically navigating (browsing) through an actual grocery store provides. It's nice to stumble across something unexpected.

Services like Roon are working to merge these two different usability challenges into a single experience using techniques like graph data (e.g. Google's Knowledge Graph) and algorithms (e.g Google's RankBrain)… but it's still a work-in-progress.

I have a record collection of >20.000 items and I sort by label and labelnr. (from old to new). Most records are listed and graded in Discogs. If I want to listen/compare a certain record/composition I consult 'My collection' in Discogs. After 25 years of collecting this works for me. Kr. Jasper