After several years of hauling boxes of cd's back from festivals, abusing my wallet at Wayside, and trying to support bands by buying their merch I am faced with a minor Herculean task.
I had let everything just pile up.
When new music enters the house, the first order of business is to rip the cd onto a NAS for my squeezebox system.
It then usually drives around with me in the car for a while.
Then it would just get set down as more cd's have entered the house and need 'attention'.
It is time for Sorting and Storing and fitting the new in with the old.
I have shelf space for about 1300 single jewel cases so I can potentially store a few more due to paper slip cases and digi-pacs. Minus a few due to double cd's and box sets.
My burden is much lighter than others as my collection numbers fewer than 2000 cd's ( at least for a while )
The collection is predominantly physical. I resist downloads, but if that is the only way, then download I must.
I want to organize things in a semi coherent fashion, the alphabet is your friend.
I though about grouping by genre, or common band membership. Stinky can of worms.
First letter of the Artists last name, first letter of the Band ( dropping the The )
That was easy.
What about bands/artists that use numbers or punctuation marks for the first character of the band name?
How about compilations, samplers, tributes, re-mixes, ( the dreaded Various ) , Classical?

Some discs will be denied shelf space and will be relegated to storage boxes ( I have room for 300 or so )
Hard choices for those. Out of sight, out of mind. Space is at a bit of a premium, and the collection will continue to grow.

So after that gust of wind, how do you handle the 'outliers' in your collection? Understanding that for some folks the outliers are the meat of the collection.