Keeping Your OTR Collection Organized

These are my ruminations on the concept of organizing a list for an OTR collection, geared to trading shows with others. PreRamble
What I Do With the Lists
Organization Options
Show Names
Dates
Titles
Miscellaneous Information
What Tools (programs) Can Be Used

PreRamble

I receive many lists from collectors and there are many styles to these lists. Some are well done, others are somewhat troublesome to deal with. The best ones have a standard format for each show/episode. The tough ones have multiple ways in which the episodes are layed out. I'm going to try to describe a way for the newbie to start laying out their list for ease of use to others. Us old-time collectors with 1000's of shows may not get much use out of this because reformatting will be a time-consuming job. But if you trade with me, I'll end up doing it anyway, so if you want it reorganized, when we trade let me know you'd like your list sent back reformatted and I won't delete entries as I reformat. (I may charge you a measly three additional tapes for this service ;-)

Please keep in mind these are my own personal observations and can be taken as guidelines, or ignored completely. It's your list and you know how you deal with your collection.

What I Do With the Lists

I should first explain what I do with the lists I receive so you know where I'm coming from. Being computer savvy, I have developed a way to handle these lists that help me in reducing duplicate shows when I'm selecting shows for 2 or more trades at the same time.
  1. Convert any non-text lists into text (usually Excel files)
  2. Edit this file to reformat it so all pertinant information is in separate columns (Show, date, title, comments, length)
  3. Remove all shows by date that are already in my collection.
  4. Suck this file into .DBF database format
  5. Add other necessary fields (person, alternate showname, showcode)
  6. Add this file to my combined database with all people I'm trading with.
In step 5, showname is the name of the show as I use it, whereas show is the name the person uses. showcode is simply a short code I use for technical purposes.

Step 6 is my end result. This way, as I try to fill in holes in, say, Escape, I mark the shows I'm requesting from the person I'm dealing with for the first request. Then when I move to person 2, I know which shows are "on order" and can get others from them without duplicates. When the shows arrive, because of the combined database, I can delete that show from everyone's list at once.

Now this is simply my technique. I wouldn't recommend it for most people because is complex and cumbersome in many ways. But the end result for me is worth it. Plus I've automated a fair amount of the process being a programmer.

Organization Options

There are many ways to organize your collection, as well as the list. Here are some ways I've seen lists done that are hard to deal with: 

THE JACK BENNY SHOW with Mary Livingstone, Don Wilson, Dennis Day, Phil Harris
1/23/45 Jack and gang go to opera, w/ Cary Grant 
2/4/46 w/ Ronald Coleman, Jack practices violin
Here's to Veterans, 1945, Jack's phonograph 15:00
Dennis goes to the movies

YOURS TRULY JOHNNY DOLLAR starring Bob Baily
2/3/56 - 2/7/56 The Calico Cat Conundrum 75 minutes
5-13-61 with Mandel Kramer, 30 min, The Tough List Affair
May 1962, The Quantum Matter Matter

LUM & ABNER (all shows 15 minutes)
Lum goes shopping 3-4-36
Abner returns present 3-5-36
Lum shoots Abner 3/8/36
There's a lack of consistancy here. Each line pretty much has a different format. In my humble opinion, the most important items on a list are: All the other information is incidental although useful to know but isn't required to pinpoint a needed episode. Two formats I think are easiest to deal with are:
    SHOW,EPISODE INFO (including date,title, misc info)
or
    SHOWNAME                     [Show Name heads the episode list]
        EPISODE INFO (including date,title, misc info)
        EPISODE INFO (including date,title, misc info)
          etc.
The order of the episode info on each line is somewhat immaterial.

Show Names

If you use the first format, be consistant! Don't mix names like Amos 'n Andy and Amos and Andy in the same listing. I've seen this done. Also, for sorting, Amos & Andy and AMOS & ANDY are not the same to a computer.

Many lists use the 2nd format and insist on specifying stars:
    Sherlock Holmes starring Whoozit and Whatzit

Set off the stars if you must put them on the line with parentheses:
    Sherlock Holmes (starring Whoozit and Whatzit)

since the names are not part of the title. Same with times:
    LUM & ABNER (15 min each)

And the leading The or A: don't use it. They sort wrong. Jack Benny's program should go under J, not T.

Show names are interesting beasts. Many accepted names are not accurate and many times people will change the name for their list. For example, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar in my collection is just Johnny Dollar. It's shorter and can't get confused with other shows. And it was officially The Lucky Strike Program, starring Jack Benny, not The Jack Benny Show but we accept the later as the show's name.

But confusion reigns when Town Hall Tonight is specified and it's either a Fred Allen show (which most people are looking for) or a summer replacement with Stoopnagle and Bud (which are less in demand). I'd personally settle on Fred Allen as the show title starring Fred and let Town Hall handle all other shows without Fred. Same with Bing Crosby's various titles -- they're all just Bing Crosby to me.

Dates

Dates should be listed in a consistant format: YYYY/MM/DD
YY/MM/DD
MM/DD/YYYY
MM/DD/YY
Year first is easiest to sort
Month first is normal, at least in the US (DD/MM/YY for non-US locations)

1940

the full year if only specifying the broadcast year

1940s or 1940's

to specify approximate years. Settle on one form only.

12/45
12/00/45

If you don't know the day, leave it out or specify day as 00
Don't use ?? for the unknown part

/ or -

Be consistant in your use of date separators, one or the other

 If the date is unknown, leave space for it, specify 00/00/00, or consistantly use a specifier like "(unknown)" or "(?date?)"

2 or 4 digit years should be fine. Consider converting to 4 within the next 20 years or so if you are going to collect new radio productions.

But don't use the following formats:

5/7/45
Make the day consistantly 2 characters, use 5/07/45 instead And the month should also be 2 characters, always with leading 0 or space

May 7, 1945

Names of months are almost impossible to deal with. 95% of all logs are in mm/dd/yy format anyway. And for some people, translating Aug into 8 takes more brain cells than they want to use ;-) For shows like Johnny Dollar where the show was broadcast on 5 consecutive days, specifying each date seems unnecessary. The opening episode should be enough, and in the misc info, mention it's a 5-parter. For other shows that are 2 part episodes (Suspense's "Donovan's Brain") either make an entry for each episode because it was in fact two separate episodes or specify it as "Two Parts".

Titles

Use a similar format for each title, and keep it separate from the rest of the information. Sometimes the title is not a real title, such as on Jack Benny, Burns & Allen, etc, but guest star's name or a plot line, like:

    Cary Grant guests
    Jack goes to the racetrack
    Gracie interviews Frank Sinatra
And again, don't use leading The or A. On a title, put them at the end: Clock and the Rope, the

Miscellaneous Information

Again, consistancy. If you're going to specify something for a few shows, such as length, supporting cast, or quality rating, do it the same way each time it's used. 15min, 30min are short and concise, and do the job. And as much as possible, place each item in the same order for each line.

Guest Star    10/12/45  Jack Benny             15min  Rochester, Mary, Jack sing Jack's song
Jack Benny       1945   Jimmy Stewart          Jack want's Jimmy to sing (scratchy at beginning) 
Johnny Dollar  1/12/56  Black Bart Matter, the 15min  5 parter
This will make your list easier to use since things are always in the same position for each episode. And the less an item is used, the further down the line it should be placed.

What Tools (programs) Can Be Used

In each case below, you can search the web to find and download many freeware and shareware programs that will work as well or better than the ones that come with your computer. But make sure it can Save As to the least common format, a text (.TXT) file

Text Format

The easiest to transfer/transmit to other people is a straight text file. But if you want items listed in columns, be sure to use the Courier font. Most other fonts are proportional (each letter has a different width) but with Courier (all types) each letter is a uniform width.

The drawbacks are that text files are a little harder to maintain, and you have to do all the formatting yourself using spaces and tabs.

Most if not all computers will come with a text editor of some kind.

Documents

Created by Word Processors, these files have much more formatting capabilities than Text Files. You can define tab stops for even columns, or use tables for better column control. Text can be Bold and Italicized so your list is pretty and things stand out.

Unfortunately, all these 'cute' features won't always translate into the other formats. And the list can't be sorted easily without saving into at least Text format (all the pretty stuff will be lost then). I therefore don't recommend Word Processors for lists.

Most if not all computers will come with at least a rudimentary word processor.

Spreadsheets

Probably the best option for most. Each item you want to keep track of can be a column in the spreadsheet. It can be sorted in various ways. It can be converted into other formats easily (with limitations). It's easy to add to.

A drawback of a least one spreadsheet program is that when converting into Text or Database files, sometimes the conversion will shorten long entries loosing information. I personally don't care for spreadsheet files because I have extra work to do to keep the whole file intact during a conversion.

Sometimes a spreadsheet program will come with the computer, sometimes they are an add-on program (purchased separately). Many are available for download from the Internet

Data Base

The most versatile of all, a database can be sorted in any order desired, reports printed for some or all the information, basically the most flexible way to store a collection and generate your lists. They can be made as simple as a spreadsheet and still have the power to list anything in any order.

But, and I mean BUT, without the right training (or books on hand), they can drive you crazy if you try to get too fancy! Without the proper knowledge going into the project, a database will have the largest learning curve. And they can be made unweildy with the wrong design because of the power a DB can handle. So if you elect to go this way, Keep It Simple!

A Database is most likely an add-on to your system.

So, based on all that, my personal preference is that you store your collection in a database that uses .DBF format. That's the easiest for me to deal with. But you may want it easier for you to deal with instead (selfish little...), so my real recommendation is a spreadsheet. But no matter how you go, make sure the tool you choose can convert into other formats, especially text. Generally you can find the formats offered on the "Save As" dialog under "File" menu selection.

If you have questions, or are interested in recomendations, feel free to contact me.
Comments, suggestions, additional info,

[an error occurred while processing this directive]