For non-commercial stuff, I have recently cleared my shelves of around 700- 800 CDs by using wallets containing pages with plastic, treated pockets (4 pockets per page - 2 front, 2 back).
The ones on sale here in Ireland (€2.00 each) claim to hold 94 CDs, but practically by using 1 side of page for the CDs and the back for documentary information (sleeve notes etc), you don't run the risk of distorting them by packing them too tightly.
Have cut down the number of shelves in use from around a dozen to 4.
Jim Carroll