EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project

Subject: EFDSS Full English web project
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 10 May 11 - 01:00 PM

There was a passing mention of the Heritage Lottery funding for The Full English project in the EFDSS announcement here of the Arts Council England funding, but here are more details, via Musical Traditions:

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has given the green light to support the EFDSS' The Full English project. Development funding of £30,000 has been awarded by HLF to help progress their plans, which will see EFDSS work with five other nationally important English folk music and dance archive collections to tell the story of traditional, rural and working class culture in 20th-century England. This means that the project can now progress to the second stage of the HLF application process, with up to two years to submit more detailed plans and apply for the full grant of just over £615,400.

The project will carry out essential conservation work, digitise the collections and join them through a single web portal, allowing online public access to the collections for the first time. An educational programme, which draws upon and is inspired by the collections, will be run in 21 different locations in England.

The Full English project will join up a complete set of the most important folk music collections in England - those of Harry Albino, Lucy Broadwood, Clive Carey, Percy Grainger, Maud Karpeles, Frank Kidson, Thomas Fairman Ordish, Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Alfred Williams - through a single web portal, allowing public access to 39,179 items via 70,862 individually digitised pages. This will involve partnership between six archives at English Folk Dance and Song Society; The British Library; Clare College, Cambridge; The Folklore Society at University College London; the Mitchell Library, Glasgow; and the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre.

The collections will form the foundation for learning and participation programmes to be run across nine regions of England which it is estimated will involve over 20,000 people of all ages. The project will comprise projects with children and young people, work with teachers and other arts educationalists; partnering with local arts organisations to deliver community projects comprising participatory events and concerts; archive and history projects and training of volunteers in archive and conservation work.

15.4.11

--

Wow. Talk about effects beyond the neighborhood of C. Sharp House! Very exciting. I suppose it's important to note that this is funding for project development plans, with full funding still to be applied for and granted.

Wishing them well as it goes forward...

~ Becky in Long Beach

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English web project
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 11 May 11 - 12:15 PM

bump

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English web project
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 11 May 11 - 12:48 PM

Looks great.

I suspect that there's been no comments just 'cause there isn't much more than that so say really!

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English web project
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 May 11 - 12:51 PM

So exciting,I must go out and dance a jig, along with all the unemployed teenagers in Brixton

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English web project
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 May 11 - 02:37 PM

It really is remarkably inexpensive - compare it to the absurd sums being spent on the Olympics. Or on that disastrous bid to have the World Cup in England.

This is for something that actually matters.

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English web project
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 May 11 - 05:10 PM

I agree, McGrath,if you are a lover of folk music compared to the Olympics it is, money well spent.
However, The money spent on the Olympics, is probably a more efficient way of using the capitalist system to regenerate itself,and employs more people and reduces unemployment[temporarily]more quickly.

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English web project
From: GUEST,Marianne S.
Date: 11 May 11 - 05:21 PM

Excuse me, Mr. Schweik, but where do you live?   Is it in Brixton?

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English web project
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 12 May 11 - 03:14 AM

The Full English - £645,400 (if full funding is granted).

Olympics - £9,300,000,000 (last National Audit Office estimate).

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English web project
From: MartinRyan
Date: 12 May 11 - 03:21 AM

It's just compensation for the failure to have Morris dancing included in the Olympics, surely! ;>)

Regards

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English web project
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 May 11 - 06:03 AM

I am pleased[ JOKING ASIDE] EFDSS has got this money.
in fact I am pleased both the olympics and efdss have got money, but   lets be honest many more people are interested in the olympics[unfortunately] than in English traditional music, FURTHERMORE the olympics will employ many more people of different social backgrounds and help to distribute money and create wealth,jobs, etc , to a far greater capacity.
unemploymnent is number one priority. The Funding of the olympics is a very good idea, it is ridiculous to suggest that efdss should receive the same amount of money as the olympics, but not ridiculous to argue that EFFDSS should receive perhaps 20 per cent more, and the olympics twenty per cent less.
so instead of this
The Full English - £645,400 (if full funding is granted).

Olympics - £9,300,000,000 (last National Audit Office estimate
this,
Olympics 7 ,300, 000, OOO, FULL ENGLISH ;750,000

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English web project
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 12 May 11 - 06:06 AM

"more people are interested in the olympics[unfortunately] than in English traditional music"

Well, this should should go some way toward redressing that.

Subject: The Full English - Folk Archive
From: GUEST,Lizzie Cornish
Date: 03 Apr 13 - 12:00 PM

The Full English - Folk Archive

Subject: RE: The Full English - Folk Archive
From: SunrayFC
Date: 03 Apr 13 - 12:07 PM

Exciting

Subject: RE: The Full English - Folk Archive
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 03 Apr 13 - 02:11 PM

Huge free digital archive of English folk music
'The Full English' will be world's biggest digital archive of English traditional music and dance tunes.

By Martin Chilton, Culture Editor online
The Telegraph
03 Apr 2013

Folk music fans will get free access to more than 58,000 items under an innovative project to create the world's biggest digital archive of English traditional music and dance tunes.

'The Full English' will bring together 11 major collections for the first time when it launches online in June. It will be the most comprehensive searchable database of English folk songs, tunes, dances and customs in the world.

Collections to be featured are those of Harry Albino, Lucy Broadwood, Clive Carey, Percy Grainger, Maud Karpeles, Frank Kidson, Thomas Fairman Ordish, Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Alfred Williams and Mary Leather.

To mark the launch, some of the biggest names in folk music will come together including Seth Lakeman, Martin Simpson, and Fay Hield. They will perform new music and arrangements inspired by material found in the archive, and created by Hield.

She said: "Exploring the archives so far has led to some amazing discoveries and there is a wealth of material that, from 20 June, will be available to anyone who is interested. I am delighted that so many talented and experienced musicians will be part of The Full English Tour, enabling us to share our discoveries."

Other musicians involved in the tour include Nancy Kerr, Sam Sweeney, Rob Harbron and Ben Nicholls.

The Full English project, from English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), has been supported by the National Lottery through a £585,400 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. It has also been supported by the National Folk Music Fund and The Folklore Society.

The archive-inspired works will premiere on June 20 at Cecil Sharp House in London, the home of EFDSS. The Full English archive will be the subject of a BBC Radio 4 programme, to be broadcast following the launch.

Then, the Full English tour will run from October 19 until November 2 in Bury, Gateshead, Southport, Derby, Bristol, Colchester, Sheffield, Milton Keynes, London, Birmingham and Lincoln.

Lakeman said: "I have always been interested in folk stories, songs and tunes so the plan by EFDSS to make a lot of their archives available via the internet is something I want to support.

"I'm excited that I've been asked to be part of this special project celebrating this work and I'm looking forward to working with this great bunch of musicians."

Katy Spicer, chief executive of EFDSS, said: "It is wonderful that digital technology is helping to bring old songs and music back to life and to a new generation."
---

EFDSS page on the tour. They are seeking volunteers to help at the events.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: EFDSS Receives big Lottery Grant
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 03 Apr 13 - 02:13 PM

2011 thread on the seed money for the project

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 03 Apr 13 - 09:04 PM

Hmm. 2013 launch performances and 2011 seed money threads consolidated now in this thread.

Here's the discussion of the 2012 announcement of the big lottery grant.

Here's the EFDSS news page on the project, and the project blog.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 14 Jun 13 - 01:07 PM

"Unlocking hidden treasures of England's cultural heritage

The English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) will launch a new digital archive that will allow anyone anywhere in the world to explore traditional English folk music and dances tunes on Thursday 20 June."

The Full English

Curmudgeon is excited, too.

Linn

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Jun 13 - 03:27 PM

Interesting.

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 Jun 13 - 08:08 AM

Just heard the likes of Fay Hield and Rob Harbron talking about this on the BBC R2's Music Matters - sounds great.

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jun 13 - 08:36 AM

For the sake of accuracy, 'Music Matters' was (and is) on Radio 3.

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 15 Jun 13 - 09:08 AM

Yes, sorry.

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: Vic Smith
Date: 20 Jun 13 - 10:10 AM

My first glance at it today (well, I have been using 'Take 6' for some while which forms a part of it) ... and it is simply stunning, an absolute must! I have a very busy day today, but I could not resist having a very quick look.
What to search for? Well, currently I have "MacDonald's Return To Glencoe" as an earworm at the moment - I recorded this song from Davy Stewart in 1971. Davy was practically illiterate but had a very full version with some literary pretentions. I went for that song. Among a mass of references, mainly from Steve Roud's Broadside Index were:-
* A fascimile version on a broadside from Frank Kitson's collection that has IDENTICAL words to those that Davy sung.
* A version was collected by Gardiner from Charles Bateman in Portsmouth Workhouse in 1907. That building is now part of St. Mary's Hospital and I cycled past it every day on the way to grammar school.

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: RTim
Date: 20 Jun 13 - 10:39 AM

At first look, it is not as easy to use as the old Take 6 site, but well worth looking over. I think you need to know what you are looking for, but a great new facility is "Maps". This shows on a map of the UK places where items were collected. If you click on the "arrow" it shows what was collected there - Brilliant!!
Tim Radford

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 20 Jun 13 - 02:17 PM

I hadn't seen this earlier thread when I started this one about Fay's appearance on Woman's Hour today with Nancy Kerr!

Kitty

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: GUEST,jenny sans cookie
Date: 20 Jun 13 - 02:23 PM

For most items all I am getting is a list of statistics (informant, collector etc).
Am I missing something?
Can we not access the lyrics, notation etc?

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: Lynn W
Date: 20 Jun 13 - 08:57 PM

Jenny, I was puzzled too at first - you have to click on the white and orange arrow to the left, not the name of the item

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 21 Jun 13 - 06:27 AM

The Full English was well and truly launched last night at Cecil Sharp House in front of a capacity audience.

If you are a member of the EFDSS (and if not, why not - help support the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library's day to day operations, Folk Music Journal, education etc etc) , then you will have read, in the latest English Dance & Song magazine, the features on The Full English , as well as the editorial.

I am very interested in hearing from people who have used the Full English, discovered something interesting in there, and then used it for personal performance (on big stages or local singarounds or in a morris or sword team, or in the local music session), or perhaps to find out more about your dancing, singing, playing etc), or to help your own research, etc etc....... I want to include some Full English successes in a follow-up feature.

Look forward to hearing from you!

Derek Schofield
Editor

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jun 13 - 06:41 AM

The Full English - £645,400 ...

Olympic[s] - £9,300,000,000 ...
.,,.,

Blimey. Little Chef must be getting desperate.

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 21 Jun 13 - 09:36 AM

Eh?

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jun 13 - 10:41 AM

Little Chef is a chain of roadside eateries in UK ~~ sort of like Howard Johnson was, mutatis mutandis. Their menu includes the Full English Breakfast & --


    Our Famous Olympic Breakfast
    £7.69 Two rashers of back bacon, British pork sausage, two free range griddled eggs, mushrooms, sauté potatoes, griddled tomato and Heinz Baked Beans. Served with toast or fried bread.
Add a slice of black pudding from Ramsay of Carluke for £1.19

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: Reinhard
Date: 23 Jun 13 - 01:41 AM

The Full English website is a wonderful ressource and looks more modern and easier to use than the old VWML site. Good!

But there is room for improvement:
- A search in the Full English Roud Folksong Index often gives less results than in the old one. For example, when I search for Cecilia Costello's Leader album I get 13 results in the old Roud Index but only 12 results in the new Roud Index; The Lover's Ghost is missing.

- All search results are shown side by side and you have to scroll horizontally through them. Try to search for Roud 1 and scroll through the 479 results... My wrist HURTS after working just 30 minutes with the Full English website.

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: DMcG
Date: 23 Jun 13 - 02:47 AM

Also a slight, but unsurprising, change in the new Roud index is that it does not include the cross-references to the folkinfo site that it used to, so you can no longer easily get from knowing, for example, that 'The Anti-gallican' is in a book, to the music as both sheet and playable midi. Copyright concerns, I suppose, added to the fact the folkinfo site is live but unsupported, and also outside EFDSS's control all make their decision (or accidental omission) understandable, but it is still regrettable.

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 23 Jun 13 - 09:22 AM

Steve Roud has asked me to post the following:

First of all a point of information. The Roud Indexes are not part of the 'Full English' project, nor is 'Full English' the name of the new VWML site. The Full English is the project to digitise, catalogue and present selected manuscript collections; the Roud Indexes are a completely separate entity (compiled by me, not the EFDSS) but hosted by the EFDSS to make them freely available.


My indexes on the new VWML site have a new search engine and interface (designed by Richard Butterworth), but the underlying database structure is the same as on the old site, but incorporating about 14,000 new entries on the Folk Song Index and 35,000 more on the Broadside Index.



We are currently testing and de-bugging the new site, so it was very useful to hear about the problem of the missing Cecilia Costello entry. It's still there in my underlying database, so it appears to have been missed out in the uploading process. I don't know why, and as yet don't know if this is an isolated case or one of many - but we will look into it, and it will be back in there soon!



Anyone who uses my Indexes regularly or for detailed research might wish to join the Yahoo discussion list for users (http://groups.yahoo.com/search?query=roudindexes) because that is where I announce major changes, updates issued, and so on. There is also the facility to download each database, as a comma-delimited file, if you wish to use them in your own package on your own computer.


Steve Roud

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: RTim
Date: 23 Jun 13 - 09:37 AM

Derek - (Hi!) - Will the old Take 6 and Roud Index Search pages be retained? or will they go when testing of the new facility has ended?

I am sure I will have something to say about the new facility when I have time to fully look over it.
Tim Radford

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 23 Jun 13 - 01:38 PM

Steve Roud has asked me to post a further message ...

My understanding is that the Take 6 and old Roud Index pages will be taken down once the new one is working well. They are already woefully out of date (as I mentioned earlier, by tens of thousands of records).



If anyone has comments on the new site, could they please post them to the official feedback address: http://www.vwml.org/vwml-contact-and-visit-us/tell-us-what-you-think





We have looked into the missing Lover's Ghost entry, and we have discovered that the fault lay in the upload file being truncated somewhere down the line (so not my fault, nor Richard's, which is a relief). There must be other records missing too, so we will be uploading a new set of data as soon as possible, and will build in some checks to make sure it doesn't happen again. Thanks for letting us know. The upside is, the new file has nearly 1000 more records than the old one.



I don't think anyone answered Jenny-Sans-Cookie's query earlier. Sounds like you are searching all the databases and indexes at once. If you only want the Full English (i.e. the catalogue with the digital images of the songs themselves), make sure ONLY the Full English is ticked (checked) in the 'Filter Collections' list on the left. the digital images are at the bottom of each record.



Steve Roud

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: Vic Smith
Date: 24 Jun 13 - 03:54 PM

As well as joining this thread, I started another with the same post as mine of 20 Jun 13 - 10:10 AM on the fRoots Forum. This comment was added on that board by Richard Butterworth the web programmer of the Full English site:-

The more technically minded might be interested in a couple of things we've added to the new VWML site to help sharing the information on the site. (The less technically minded will probably be bored silly very rapidly.)

On the old site we noticed that the rather unwieldy urls that it generated were being posted onto forums, into emails and so on. So we've generally tried to make the urls the new site creates a bit neater and shorter.

In particular we noticed that the search urls for particular Roud numbers were being shared around. So, firstly there's a new user friendly url which takes you straight to a search for a Roud number...

http://www.vwml.org/roudnumber/XXX (don't click on this link! its just an example)

...where XXX is the Roud number you're after. So if you want to see all the records in the Roud indexes for Roud number 40, you can get to them with...

http://www.vwml.org/roudnumber/40 (do click on this one -- it works)

Secondly, each record in the Full English/Roud indexes/etc has a permanent url. The permanent url for a record is seen by clicking on the orange 'share' button with the three connected circles to the right of each record. So the permanent url for the letter from Henry Burstow that Shirley Collins so movingly talked about at the Full English launch is...

http://www.vwml.org/record/LEB/2/100

Its a much better idea to share these permanent urls than copying and pasting the url for the results of a search. The url for a search contains the information you searched for and which record you're currently looking at. So if you searched for the letter from Henry Burstow, you'll (currently) find that its the 4th item in a search for 'burstow letter' in The Full English. Now if you wanted to share that letter with all your friends (and who wouldn't?) if you sent them the url for the search, they'd get the 4th record in a search for 'burstow letter'. But we might subsequently catalogue some more Burstow letters which means that url will go out of date. The permanent url will always point to the appropriate record.

Here endeth the lesson.

Any comments/feedback about the new site is always welcome...

http://www.vwml.org/vwml-contact-and-visit-us/tell-us-what-you-think

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: Reinhard
Date: 25 Jun 13 - 02:46 AM

Thank you very much for re-uploading Steve Roud's data, everything seems to be in place now. (The Lover's Ghost was only the first entry I missed - out of six random searches four fell short on the new site. But it's all there now.)

And I appreciate the new search URL for the Roud numbers too; it's much easier to remember. I've adapted my search macro on Mainly Norfolk accordingly, which fixes well over 1000 links to the VWML site.

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jul 13 - 05:37 AM

(Fairly brief) article about the project in The Guardian today.

Subject: RE: EFDSS Full English (folk archive) web project
From: Brian Peters
Date: 26 Jul 13 - 06:56 AM

Spent the whole morning going through dozens of terrific John Barleycorns. There's just too much good stuff there!