Intelliscanner

I have never bothered to catalog my CD collection, nor my vinyl collection, for that matter. Unfortunately, most of the vinyl was ruined some years ago due to water damage during years of storage. So sad. Basically, I've never catalogued everything simply because it seemed like such a colossal waste of time. I lamented to my Dad that I wished there was a cheap product out there which would make cataloging my collection easy.

Well, recently my Dad decided to buy a handheld barcode scanner to scan what was in his own collection (music, movies, etc).

Here is the device in action:


Although it didn't end up being the cheap solution I had hoped for, I told him if it worked I would pay him for half.

There were some initial problems. For example, it wouldn't scan nearly 1/3 of my collection apparently due to age, rarity of items, or simply because so many CDs did not have barcodes. However, it turns out that if I grab the ASIN code from Amazon (available on 99.9% of the searchable items), I could cut & paste the code into the Intelliscan software and it would almost always come up with the item.

Pretty slick.

I still have to enter many by hand because the database doesn’t have some of the CDs or vinyl albums. I don't have much vinyl that survived the water damage, but I am trying to also scan the surviving odd vinyl - with mixed results.

The collection looks odd. I can post it on the web for all to see (there is an export option) but all that would accomplish is to reveal too much of the bad choices I have made over the years. After all, everyone has SOMETHING to hate in someone else's collection. Add to that the fact that since my collection must be nearly 2,000 records (not counting MP3s) there are simply more things for each viewer to loathe.

On a side note:

I've found some fun gems I haven't listened to in ages. The odd thing is the water damage destroyed tons of my college vinyl, but somehow spared some of my bad high school purchases. It was very random what was lost and what survived. Most of my Kate Bush vinyl was spared, yet a very cool marbled vinyl collectable copy of Hounds of Love was ruined. Some lame Beatles collections (best of) were spared, but my collectable White Album on white vinyl on the Apple label was ruined. Nearly all of my XTC vinyl was ruined (some very rare EPs), yet my copy of Neil Young's Reactor was spared. Obviously I had not alphabetized my collection.

As quick as scanning 2/3rds of my collection might be, hand entering the other 1/3 is slow. It could take days before I finish. I am sure I could be spending that time more wisely, but after all these years, at least it is finally getting done.

Plus, it is taking me away from playing Wii games. That can't be all bad.