This evening, I began a project I’ve been putting off for at least a couple of years now — converting all of my CDs to MP3s. At last count I had close to 1,200 music CDs. At approximately 5 minutes per conversion, that’s 100 hours of work ahead of me. Of course there’s very little manual labor involved in converting them; you simply insert a CD, click a button, wait five minutes, and remove the CD when the conversion is complete. Still, I’ve got to sit close by the computer to click buttons and swap CDs in and out of the drive. Perhaps I should say I have 100 hours of waiting (instead of work) ahead of me instead.

So, why am I converting all my music to MP3s? After doing a bit of soul searching I’ve realized I listen to music in four places: my house, my desk at work, while walking, and in my car. At home, work, and while walking, I listen to MP3s either on a computer or my MP3 player. In my car, I listen to the radio. The only time I listen to actual audio CDs is during road trips. I suppose on future road trips, I’ll have to figure something else out.

There are, of course, many advantages to converting one’s music collection to a digital format. Currently, my CD collection fills up a set of shelves eight foot wide, four foot high. If I did the math right, all 1,200 albums should take up somewhere around 100 gig of drive space — that’s twenty-five blank DVDs, or just one moderately sized hard drive. My old music collection becomes instantly portable.

When I’m done, the next question becomes, what will I do with 1,200 CDs? I may sell them, although I’m not sure what the used CD market is these days. I could probably get a buck or two out of most of them. I’m not sure selling them one at a time on eBay would be financially viable. For the time being, I’m boxing them up to store out in the garage (of course) until I decide what exactly to do with them.