How do you inventory your collection?
I had a question for you guys...
So I have been collecting for many years (as some of you old timers know) and I also have family members who are collectors as well which is probably what got me into collecting. In addition, I studied literature in college so books are a huge passion to me.
With that said, I have almost 2,000 hardcover (mainly signed/inscribed/rare/firsts/ SL editions, etc) in my apartment and probably just as many in my parents home. I think when Karen came over to my place once, she noted that my books are in no specific order, which is of no help in easily locating specific books. The only books that are in order of publication are the Joe Hill books - but that's probably because I've been collecting him fairly recently.
So my question is this... I know that most of you guys document your collections in an inventory type of way - probably in an excel sheet format. What should I document? Of course the author/title/etc... but what else do you document? Date of publication? Original price?
I'm trying to get an idea of how I should go about this so I can formally get my library on paper. The reason I am doing this is because fairly recently I have been noticing that I am bidding on and buying books that I already have and don't really need another copy of.
Hopefully this can be helpful to a few of us looking to document our collections...