I'm not trying to tell anybody what to do here. It's that I get a gob of mail asking for my opinion on such matters so I thought I'd assemble it in one place.
Although OTR collecting might seem simple, there are several decisions for the new collector to make (the following assumes MP3-format collecting):
What to collect
Comedy like Jack Benny or Lum and Abner? Drama? Mystery? Horror (my favorite!) Shows from a given period? It's up to you. Regardless of what you choose, trading and collecting will be more rewarding if you start out with a plan of some sort.
How to collect
This will be affected strongly by why you collect: because you like to listen? because you want to archive this stuff for posterity? Because you like collecting and organizing?
The easiest way to build complete series quickly is to exchange CD-Rs full of shows. There are two common mechanisms for doing this:
trading: you and some other collector have stuff the other wants. You burn equal numbers of CDs and mail them to each other. Both parties keep the mailed discs.
postal round robins (aka "trees"): people in a group mail CDs around to each other and make copies as the disc passes through their paws. The people who use these round robins really love them.
buy CDs from a collector. Sometimes the series you want is not available any other way. I have bought several series off eBay that were fairly priced and in great shape.
It can be useful to store information about the show in the filename:
Fictional example: "TOTR 440102 ep363 Attack of the Cactus.mp3".
In this example, This is a Tales of the Texas Rangers show, Jan 2, 1944, the 363rd episode, entitled Attack of the Cactus.
A rational and uniform format like this will make the file display uniform as well, and you will be able to easily spot
typos, missing shows, and mis-named files. You can use a program like MP3 Filename Formatter to rename files easily.
There is also a freeware tool called otter to help rename your files.
Organizing a series
Once you have the filenames rationalized the series is basically organized.
I like to keep each series on its own CD-R (or multiple CD-Rs, depending on the size of the series). If you keep plenty of room on the cd, it's simple to replace, add, and upgrade files in the series by burning another session. In that session you can correct filenames, add in replacement files, etc. Remember that each additional session 'costs' 13MB, and you have to leave the disc open in the beginning if you want to add sessions later. You can get more info on the technical details in my Adaptec/Roxio Easy CD Creator FAQ, which contains enough general info that it may be worth browsing.
Once you have your series organized, you can go about completing it. The files you need to complete your series are called fills (presumably because they fill holes in your collection).
make sure of what you've got Once you start
trying to complete your series, you may find that your existing
shows are misdated, misnamed, dupes (duplicates), etc. You can
get a reality check by looking a lists of series info, called logs.
Logs are your friend.
make a list of exactly what you need. The key here is to make it easy for people to help you.
It is crucial that you include info to help people find your shows; include series title, show dates, show title, and episode numbers of the fills you need.
ask for specific help on the web. If your show is in the public domain and you have a website, put up a few hard-to-find shows from your series for others to download, and put a note on the page asking for the fills you need. Note: put up only a few files in rotation, as the bandwidth can kill you otherwise. You may want to zip the file to keep your provider from thinking you are posting copyrighted music files.
ask for specific help on the newsgroups. The time-honored method is to post what you've got to the appropriate binary newsgroup, asking for fills. This builds goodwill and shows you are not a leech. Newsgroup folks are exceedingly helpful.
offer to trade. Put up a webpage offering to trade what you have for what you don't have. Again, organization is the key. Post that list in a clear, concise format and the trades will come to you. Note that you can frequently "improve the herd" by trading for a disc you already have: it's a great way to find upgrades.
If you need a lot of fills the newsgroups or a trade are probably the best way to go about it.
If you need very few fills (like a handful) you may politely ask someone to post files you know they have. Be specific: "Ted, I see that on your OTR disc #14 you have episode such-and-such. Is there a way I can get copies of those by ftp/http/streamload/whatever? I can trade for it..." Telling them which disc it's on will make it very easy for them to help you.
buy a complete set off eBay or from the vendor (if commercially available). If the series is rare and lightly traded, that may be the only way to go about it.
Organizing a collection
I'm still working this out, myself... I started out by naming the discs according to genre (drama, detective, etc), but then you have to have to decide the borderline cases. Is Box 13 detective or drama? What about shows with a variety of themes like Quiet Please or RMT? If I were starting over from scratch I might do it by plain CD number (CD-001, etc)
A couple hundred CD-R can be problematic to store. They need to be somewhere in the dark, away from temperature swings
and physical damage. I store mine in notebook-style folders, which hold a bit over 200 CDs (~$30 from Office Depot).
Know what you've got:
As you work, make and maintain an up-to-date list of the shows you have on each disc. Together this listing will
keep track of everything you've got. Keep this information in a portable format like plain .txt or .html for reasons we will discuss later. Word files are not portable.
You can do something as simple as this:
pop the cd called "cd001" in the CD drive (drive E for our example)
from the dos/Run prompt: dir e:\*.mp3 > c:\temp\otr-list\cd001.txt
rebuild your master listing: type cd*.txt > master.txt
It's a cinch to automate this from a .bat file so you can call it effortless. Here's an untested example:
rem makelist.bat
rem makes a listing from OTR cds
rem Usage: makelist [cdname]
rem Example: makelist cd001
rem definitions
set CDDRIVE=e:
set LISTDIR=c:\temp\otrlist
set CDNUM=%1
rem make the listing
dir /s $CDDRIVE\*.mp3 > $LISTDIR\$CDNUM.txt
rem make the uberlist
type $LISTDIR\cd*.txt > $LISTDIR\master.txt
Publicize your list. Post your lists up on free webspace and include the URL in your signatures. Potential traders will come to you...
.zip your lists if they are large. This saves on bandwidth and many ISPs don't allow for large email attachments anyhow.
Advertise what you are looking for. People are very helpful.
Minimize surprises. Make sure both parties understand in advance what they're getting: # of CDs, # of shows, filesystem (iso9660 level 1 or 3, Joliet), media (CD-R or CD-RW, 74min or 80min media). I recommend that you master the files you trade; DirectCD discs can be problematic for the recipient.
the mousepad
