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Hello, my name is Craven, and I am a recovering alphabetizer.
That's right, I'm THAT guy. The one who not only alphabetizes his CD collection, but who even edits the ID3 tags on his MP3s so that “The Clash” becomes “Clash, The” in order that they might more perfectly rock the casbah under “C” instead of “T.”
I'm the sucker who agonizes over whether U2 should be filed BEFORE Utopia (because a common alphabetical collation methodology puts numerals before letters) or AFTER (by treating the “2” as “two”). Keeps me up at nights.
It's a problem that Freudians among us will undoubtedly trace back to my potty training days, but I just like to think of myself as... organized. Systematic. Punctilious. And I swear, if you file that Big Star album under “S,” my left eyelid will only twitch for awhile. (Until I return it to the “B” section, in other words.)
In catering to my compulsion to collate, I am enacting a long, long tradition. According to the “Encyclopedia of Library History” by Wayne Weinand and Donald Davis, it was Greek scholars at the library of Alexandria who first began arranging authors according to their lexicographical order.
For the first several centuries thereafter, alphabetization was strictly for eggheads; it didn't begin to be extensively used in business and government until the end of the Middle Ages. But by the 19th century, strict alphabetization had become an organizational norm among civilized folk — except in countries with nonalphabetic written languages, like China or Japan, where I assume they are never bothered by the question of where to file albums by the band that calls itself !
Look, being an alphabetizer is a good thing — up to a point. When you own nearly 4,000 CDs, alphabetization will help you find that Macy Gray album a lot faster than if it had been tossed willy-nilly into the cabinet with a Van Halen and the soundtrack to “1776.”
But lately, my need to alphabetize has been interfering with my normal life. While cataloging my music collection with a popular database software designed for that purpose, I suddenly realized with a lurching start that the software was filing compilation albums under “Various Artists” rather than under the album's title, as I had always previously arranged my collection.
“So what?” you may ask, and indeed, to the casual, social alphabetizer (the toujours gai type who can put all his or her “A” CDs together without obsessing over the fact that ABBA is following Laurie Anderson), this is hardly a problem. But I became weirdly alarmed that my catalog would be ordered differently than the shelves it maps.
With a fevered glare, I began pulling stacks of discs off the shelves and piling them in the middle of my library so that they might be re-ordered to match the catalog. Hours later, I found myself sitting in a cramped space between teetering piles of CDs, filled with the sort of self-loathing only a real junkie can know.
And so I stand here today, admitting I have a problem, and repeating to myself the old saying: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know where the heck to file 10cc.”
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Notes is supported by the Gay and Lesbian Fund, promoting literacy through community libraries in Colorado.
That's right, I'm THAT guy. The one who not only alphabetizes his CD collection, but who even edits the ID3 tags on his MP3s so that “The Clash” becomes “Clash, The” in order that they might more perfectly rock the casbah under “C” instead of “T.”
I'm the sucker who agonizes over whether U2 should be filed BEFORE Utopia (because a common alphabetical collation methodology puts numerals before letters) or AFTER (by treating the “2” as “two”). Keeps me up at nights.
It's a problem that Freudians among us will undoubtedly trace back to my potty training days, but I just like to think of myself as... organized. Systematic. Punctilious. And I swear, if you file that Big Star album under “S,” my left eyelid will only twitch for awhile. (Until I return it to the “B” section, in other words.)
In catering to my compulsion to collate, I am enacting a long, long tradition. According to the “Encyclopedia of Library History” by Wayne Weinand and Donald Davis, it was Greek scholars at the library of Alexandria who first began arranging authors according to their lexicographical order.
For the first several centuries thereafter, alphabetization was strictly for eggheads; it didn't begin to be extensively used in business and government until the end of the Middle Ages. But by the 19th century, strict alphabetization had become an organizational norm among civilized folk — except in countries with nonalphabetic written languages, like China or Japan, where I assume they are never bothered by the question of where to file albums by the band that calls itself !
Look, being an alphabetizer is a good thing — up to a point. When you own nearly 4,000 CDs, alphabetization will help you find that Macy Gray album a lot faster than if it had been tossed willy-nilly into the cabinet with a Van Halen and the soundtrack to “1776.”
But lately, my need to alphabetize has been interfering with my normal life. While cataloging my music collection with a popular database software designed for that purpose, I suddenly realized with a lurching start that the software was filing compilation albums under “Various Artists” rather than under the album's title, as I had always previously arranged my collection.
“So what?” you may ask, and indeed, to the casual, social alphabetizer (the toujours gai type who can put all his or her “A” CDs together without obsessing over the fact that ABBA is following Laurie Anderson), this is hardly a problem. But I became weirdly alarmed that my catalog would be ordered differently than the shelves it maps.
With a fevered glare, I began pulling stacks of discs off the shelves and piling them in the middle of my library so that they might be re-ordered to match the catalog. Hours later, I found myself sitting in a cramped space between teetering piles of CDs, filled with the sort of self-loathing only a real junkie can know.
And so I stand here today, admitting I have a problem, and repeating to myself the old saying: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know where the heck to file 10cc.”
-----------------------
Notes is supported by the Gay and Lesbian Fund, promoting literacy through community libraries in Colorado.
