What a great article and the thread makes brilliant reading too. Like one or two others on here I went for the soul packs, and what an education they were.
The range was immense, and it was always fascinating to see how different the pairing of the 2 sides on one record could be. As years went by I'd often find my taste changed to favour the side I'd thought wasn't so good when I first decided what to write on the sleeve.
I never did have that buzz of trying to phone through for a specific record from the lists, but I do have very happy memories of getting the soul pack and trying to work out what I wanted to play first along with creating little piles of ones I thought I liked most, ones to check again, and, it hurts to think of this, ones I planned to get rid of. Very few in that last group thankfully, and if I'd known how my tastes would expand and change then I'd have kept every last one!