How do you organize your library? My wife and I have bought three DVD towers, and we're actually using two and a quarter right now for DVD's. The remainder of our third tower is currently dedicated to video games. We used to have certain themes put together; Bond, Star Trek, Star Wars, Batman, other comic book properties, Disney/Pixar, Sopranos, [adult swim], etc. I also grouped favorite directors (Burton, Lean, Spielberg, etc.). Eventually, we re-organized as our library grew and went by genre. This, of course, eventually became problematic and now our entire library is just alphabetized, from Accepted to Zoolander.

For those who have also given up and alphabetized their whole library, I have a question. What have you decided to do with music DVD's? Do you alphabetize by artist's name or DVD title? For instance, would you put Garth Brooks's The Entertainer tin under "Brooks, Garth" between, say, Broken Arrow and Brother Bear; under "Garth Brooks: The Entertainer" between Gangs of New York and George of the Jungle or under "The Entertainer" between Elizabethtown and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial?

I usually alphabetize the bands in with the regular DVD's by beginning letter, like, Dave Matthews Band is 'D'. But for some reason, I keep comedians at their last name, so George Carlin has been under 'C'.

This kind of thing comes up in conversation a lot, and there's tons of ways, but the only right answer is really whatever works for you, good luck man

I think I usually do the same, although I might have some music artists under their last name.

Most of my music DVDs are bands, so they go under Band Name then title. For my comedy DVDs I go with whole name. Bill Cosby under 'B', Denis Leary under 'D'.

I've just kept everything alphabetized according to how DVD Profiler does it, with the only separation being DVDs from HD titles. The only times I deviate is for obvious cases like non-numbered series such as LOTR, where I change the "sort titles" so that they're in chronological order. If I want to isloate a certain genre I can select it in the program, getting a "virtual" grouping.

I've never really been a fan of separating by genre or actor/director because there are too many gray areas, conflicts, and overlaps.

BTW, I think this is more of a DVD question than a gear question.

Music titles filed alongside the CDs and LPs (and music laserdiscs) alphabeticaly by performer - individuals by last name, bands by first non-article word. Keep in mind that there are more than a few music DVDs that are sold in jewel boxes and digipaks that fit amongst the CDs. It seems odd that one would file stuff differently (by title?) just because of the packaging.

Movies filed alphabetically by director's last name, and then chronologically within. TV shows filed alphabetically by creator/producer.

I have 3. They just go along with the regular DVDs

Either you're not married, or your wife doesn't sweat adapting to looking for movies by director's last name. There is absolutely no way I could use your system. None. TV shows by creator/producer? I've never even heard of someone using that system. I tip my hat, though, because I recognize that your system acknowledges and respects creators. As for music DVD's not in with the CD's, it has to do with the fact that the CD changer is in a different room. It makes no sense to keep media together when the media players aren't together.

I thought, given that I've seen several threads concerning DVD storage in this section, that this might be the most appropriate one in which to direct the question of how others have approached the task of organizing their libraries.

Nope - not married. And, yeah, it helps that my DVD player and CD player are on the same rack and fed through the same preamp/amp/speakers.

As for TV shows, I'm not sure that I would be comfortable with any system that didn't put 'Buffy, 'Angel' and 'Firefly' side by side. Or 'The Simpsons' and 'Futurama.'

Loosely alphabetical by title, left to right, down each column first. Things like the "Star Wars" movies are all together under S, all three thirds of Lord of the Rings are under L, etc. The few music DVDs I have are alphabetical, in with everything else, by band name (Dead Milkmen under D, Weird Al under W)
Two big shelves with the DVDs, DVD collectibles (Hellboy, Ai Yori Aoshi girls, Simpsons things, etc) and a couple nondvd things, and a speaker on each shelf.
DisneyPixar disks are by title. I don't think I have anything by director or actor or anything.
Video games are in two places--Wii and PS2 games are on a narrow, five shelf rack to the left of the TV; 360 games are in little square wall mounted shelves also to the left, M rated on the higher shelf. They're just in there any which way (other than the rating grouping.)
The whole point of "organizing" these things is to make it easy to find titles, so a lot of it depends on how you think. If you always think "Woody Allen's Zelig" or "Criterion Brazil", it would make sense to put then in the W or A and C sections. Except for a few notable exceptions, director isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I think of a title, (I might not even know the director off hand)so I don't group by director or star or cinematographer etc. Even my Kieslowski Three Colors box set is under T, and I could name that director.
My CDs aren't an issue--once I ripped them to my HD and put them on my ipod, the CDs are back in boxes in the garage.
The electronics themselves are all together on one rack (I had to hunt to find an open rack that could hold my wide DVDplayer); top to bottom, Wii/360; PS2/cablebox; dvd player; receiver; HDDVD player.