I use Microsoft Excel and tab-delimited text files for my roll lists.
If you need more sophisticated queries you probably want to use
a relational database.

The _most important_ thing is do not invest time in cataloging within
a computer program that does not allow you to export the data to a
standard format. Most likely this will not be a problem but, if you
pick a program that encrypts data and they stop updating the program,
you might not be able to access your data.

Although I am a fast and almost accurate typist I hate typing. I will
do anything to find data already entered in an electronic format that
I can copy and paste.
I have a variety of tabbed text files that I will share from which
others can copy the data. I have the Obenchain Ampico Catalog but it
is in PDF and not formatted in a very friendly way. I probably wrote
a script a while ago to get the data in a more useful format.

All these files are available for sharing. I do have an Ampico file
with about 2000 rolls, the data for which came from various sources.

To make a list of collected rolls I would make a list of just the
roll numbers you have and use this to do multiple selections to copy
and arrange the data any way you want. I like to sort by title,
composer and performer and make sure that there is consistency. It is
easy to do bulk changes such as to change "J.S. Bach" to "Bach J. S."

Spencer Chase