storage

So I decided to shuffle my shelves a bit. My DVDs are now organised in a nice central location rather than scattered across my room. Ditto for a some of my books. For some reason I had about 30 MiniDV and Hi8 tapes lying around my room. Its a pity so little of it is useful.

Now one day I might find a useful storage device to store my ever increasing CD collection in. I have decided that a good CD rack is one that has a high density - it can store a lot of CDs in a small space. It should also be sturdy of a practical shape, be reasonably accessable and have a decent capacity.

For some reason there is a market for CD racks that can only store a handful of CDs. Now this is nice if you want a rack next to a CD player so you can have a temporary place to chuck your current favourite picks, but for any serious amount of storage you’re gonna need something that is just short of stacking the disks on their own (which in many cases is an entirely legitimate storage technique). Drawer based CD storage is good. They tend to meet my stringent capacity and density requirements, but aren’t the easiest things to browse. What isn’t good are the racks that are about 3 feet tall but only fit about 15 CDs. My brother has one. Its a waste of space. The only thing going for it is the fact that its also a sculpture, but that is part of the problem.

I have a CD rack that fits about 50-60 CDs at a reasonable density, but it is a flimsy metal thing that not only does it barely hold onto the CDs properly but it is so flimsy that when it is three quaters full of CDs (all placed at the top for accessability) if you are not careful when in its general vicinity the whole thing will tip over at the lightest touch, spilling its contents over the floor. I have managed to avoid catastrophy by putting it on a shelf and proping it up so that it leans back against the wall. It really has no use beyond a half asthetically pleasing, cheapo CD rack.

So at some stage in the future I am going to have to hunt down The CD storage solution. One that can fit all my CDs and CD-Roms in a nice, high density unit. One that doesn’t fall over with the slightest gust of wind.

One that is reasonably extensible too. Nothing worse than buying a rack to take care of your CD problem and finding out, after you have got it home and filled it, that you still have 6 CDs too many. 6 CDs which end up disappearing under mountains of dirty clothing and paper never to be seen again.