Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal

Subject: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: pavane
Date: 28 Jun 02 - 03:04 AM

Not sure if this one has been suggested before. How about a Permathread of 'catters who have specific books and would be willing to answer reasonable requests on their contents?

That would make it easier for researchers to locate the information.

Unfortunately, my own library is very small, but I was contacted a few years ago by Karl Dallas when he found that I had a copy of his book 'The Cruel Wars'.

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: GUEST,MC Fat
Date: 28 Jun 02 - 05:34 AM

Does this mean we can have 'virtual silence' in the virtual library and 'virtual fines' for 'virtual overdue books' ?

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From:
Date: 28 Jun 02 - 06:00 AM

It's a great idea. Not sure if it has been suggested before, but I know people have mentioned various songbooks they have.

It's similiar to the offer I made to a number of Gaelic song interest people. I have created an index of my books (not complete yet) of Gaelic songs. This gives title, and lists the various books and page numbers that hold that song. That way *I* don't have to find it, just have the people tell me the name of the song, and the page number.

AS I get the index completed, any song which is found online, will have a link to it. At some point in time, we could eventually (MANY years down the road) have ALL of these songs available online.

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Jun 02 - 06:01 AM

Mudcat basic folk library (and the threads indexd there).
Your good idea, Pavane, has never been really implemented, but those who have mentioned books in these threads usually own them too. So the ingformation is there but very difficult to find.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: Greyeyes
Date: 28 Jun 02 - 01:50 PM

Don't forget that several Mudcatters are professional librarians and have access to extensive reference material. Many of us are happy to access and post information for Mudcat. Personally I only work in a general public library so specialist Folk/Blues material is limited.

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: pavane
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 04:37 AM

My idea was that we should have an index so that anyone could go straight to the book, rather than having to put out a request like 'Has anyone got The Seeds of Love", which may be missed by the owner.

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: Mary Katherine
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 09:41 AM

I suspect that those of us who own hundreds, or thousands, of books are going to drag our feet when it comes to indeexing them all. I honestly don't have TIME to input a list of all the music-related books I own, though I'm happy to answer any questions that I can. The computer is in a room with about 25% of the books, and all the rest are in two different rooms, making indexing them a hauling-around, as well as a typing, chore. I think it's a great idea in principle, but at my house inertia and lack of time are the two greatest forces .

Mary Katherine

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 09:44 AM

It's a good idea in principle. There are, for example, a good few songs in the DT posted without their tunes which were taken from American books which are quite hard to get hold of (particularly in the UK); there are bound to be people here who have access to some of them. I certainly don't mind handling reasonable requests for information that I have to hand, and have managed to pick up some quite obscure stuff along with more standard texts.

Actually, The Cruel Wars isn't that hard to find now that there are some good online secondhand book indexes. Ken Stubb's The Life of a Man, on the other hand, I've just ordered from a dealer in Australia as I can't seem to locate a copy for sale in England, where it was published!

While speaking of Dallas, the leaf containing pages 209 and 210 is missing from my copy of One Hundred Songs of Toil; I wonder if some kind person could oblige with a scan?

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 10:05 AM

Malcolm - if you send me an address I'll e-mail you the scans (let me know any preferred format)

You can reach me at

    MCPearce0ATaolDOTcom
  

with appropriate substitutions.

Mick (Pearce)

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 12:26 PM

Some of us have posted the tables of contents for some books we have. I think that's a good idea, because all those song titles will show up on a search )(once we get SuperSearch indexed). I haven't thought of a uniform tag to make it easy to find an index. How about use Index: with a colon?
Best to use it in the message title, not for a whole thread.
I can rename the ones already posted, if the Index: tag is agreeable.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: nutty
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 12:46 PM

I paid twelve shillings and six pence for Life of a Man when it was first published in MCMLXX ....... anyone got any idea what that equates to in todays currency. You may have got a bargain Malcolm

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: nutty
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 12:57 PM

By the way .... Fred Hamer's Garners Gay was only ten shillings

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: DMcG
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 01:20 PM

My copy of Garner's Gay was priced at 10/- on the cover, but priced at 75p in pencil on the inside when I bought it, presumably just after decimal currency came in. Too late to complain now, d'you think? :-)

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From:
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 01:21 PM

Joe! Makes perfect sense! Thanks.

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: Sorcha
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 02:39 PM

I don't have a lot of song books, but I have quite a few tune books. I could post the titles.........I am indexing the titles in the tune books.......(I might be able to scan and post that way.....but I am not typing in several thousand tune titles most of which are probably at JC's anyway.)

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 04:35 PM

Life of a Man was going for about £9.80; using beer prices as an inflation index (the only way I know), probably about the same as the original 12/6d, though there'll be the shipping on top, of course. Still not bad, I think. I didn't buy many of those books when they were still in print, as I was a poor student and didn't read music anyway; actually, I still don't, but computers do it for me now. Wish I had picked such things up then, though; there are still books I can't seem to get hold of anywhere. Are there any spare copies of Purslow's Foggy Dew out there that haven't fallen to bits, I wonder?

I don't mind listing the books I have, but I'm not going to list all the contents any day soon. I've indexed fewer than a third (mostly the shorter ones), and that's more that 4,000 songs already (including duplicates in different books, of course); quite apart from the tunebooks. Besides, such an index is of limited use without -in the case of traditional songs- first lines and sources etc. This sort of thing would probably be of most use to people who already know what they need and roughly where it is, but can't get hold of it directly.

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 08:15 PM

Well...

I have an index to my books and CDs, in a Word doc that lists Song Title, Book/CD, page number, and some minor miscellany. Unfortunately, with very few exceptions, my stuff is all "in print" and not very "special." It has already been thoroughly "mined" against the "missing tunes" lists, so I doubt that there would be much value in having it posted.

For those who might be considering indexing their own stuff, my 207 books and 221 CDs produced a 2.76MB Word document with 37,601 Song Title Entries. Set at 9 point type, it would print at 648 pages. For the detail-task-oriented, it's 1,455,701 keystrokes, spread over about 10 years that I've been adding each new book as they come in.

I wouldn't see much value in posting my index, although if I could identify a few specific books of interest I could extract indices of them. The difficulty is in identifying which ones are worth posting.

Perhaps a more achievable goal would be just an index of book titles, as a starting point to identify which ones are of interest.

A good index is a wonderful thing - but excuse me now, I have to go look for that old thread on the meaning of "anal retentive" and then I need to add my .mid, .nwc, and .pdf music files to my index.

John

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: pavane
Date: 30 Jun 02 - 10:45 AM

I think an index to the titles in each book was MORE than I expected to see, and would be ideal!.

For each book, we would only need ONE index entry with titles, plus a note of anyone who has the volume (especially if rare)

But even the more common books could be listed.

PS Karl Dallas was trying to find a copy of Cruel Wars for Peggy Seeger - I don't know if she ever got one.

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 02:41 PM

We often need to refer to the seven-volume Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore. I have Volume IV, The Music of the Ballads, and Volume V, The Music of the Folk Songs. A number of us would like to buy Volume II, Folk Ballads from North Carolina, and Volume III, Folk Songs from North Carolina (both edited by Henry M. Belden), but they're very hard to find.
Who has Volumes 2 & 3? Can we contact you when we need to have somebody look something up?

Who has all four volumes of Randolph's Ozark Folksongs?

-Joe Offer=

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: GUEST,Burke
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 06:17 PM

The library I work in has all 4 vols. of Ozark Folksongs, but in the Music brach across campus. V.1-3 of the Frank C. Brown collection is in the building I work in.

Unfortunately, I haven't quite mastered scanning yet. I can do occasional look-ups, though.

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 12 Jul 02 - 06:23 AM

Joe thanks for the suggestions. My library has expanded and the question of "summer reading" has been solved. Wow! that book thread could bankrupt me - but found some classics at reasonable prices. Richer now in spirit, and thinnneeer in the wallet.

THANK YOU for the link.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: KateG
Date: 12 Jul 02 - 08:48 AM

For those of you seeking to fill out your library (musical or otherwise), the website www.abebooks.com (I don't know how to make blue clikies), will take you to a master listing of a gazillion used booksellers on three continents. I've found some amazing things there....and could easily empty my bank account.

KateG

Subject: RE: Mudcat 'virtual' library proposal
From: IanC
Date: 12 Jul 02 - 09:44 AM

Probably worth remembering the Basic Folk Library PermaThread which has much of what Pavane originally wanted in a fairly organised format.

If there is a demand for a "who's got" list (particularly for the rarer books) then I could add Mudcat Names to the entry for each book if people were to let me know they had them.

This would probably satisfy Pavane's original requirement.

Cheers!
Ian