Uber record collector

"Almost two decades later, Mr. Dier lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with his girlfriend, and some of his records live there too. Others are in New Jersey, taking up about half of the apartment where he lived until a few months ago. The rest are in two good-size storage rooms. In all, he has more than 50,000 records, if you include the 10-inch and 45-r.p.m. singles (and why not?). Luckily for Mr. Dier, he is a full-time disc jockey, with a weekly gig on WFMU, working under the name $mall ¢hange, and the records are the tools of his trade. Even so, over the years they have come to feel a bit oppressive."

Do you understand record collectors? In the iPod age, why bother, you ask? Well, here's a cool City Room blog feature and NYT full-length article on uber record collector James Dier that might tip to explain the necessity of it all. :-)