Hi folks,

I just got off the phone with kytrad and she mentioned that there was thread up with some questions. I thought I might slip into the thread here to offer answers to any questions that have come up.

Perhaps a first quick note on timing....we fully expected to ship The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (digital edition) by Halloween. Then xmas became the deadline. Now we are working furiously to move it out the door ASAP! (We're so close I can taste it.) The delays were two-fold: firstly technical - there are over 3,000 pages of original text all laid out and paginated to match the originals, there are 600 plus corrections (including many that Child and his publishers did not catch) that we have turned into margin notes, there are over 50,000 hyperlinks including a 2,600 line key index in the text package that make navigation in the ebooks exceptionally easy, we have optimized the find and search routines to handle immediate responses across all 13 books (5 volumes/2 parts each + gazetteer + 9 maps + introductory front matter and study aids) and for future linking to our Bronson release (currently scheduled for late in 2003), there are 55 embeded AIFF files of the tunes in book 10 plus a matching 55 MIDI files (available to registered users from our web-site), and the new scholarship on the gazetteer has consumed almost 6 months of production time....solving some of these issues took longer than anticipated; secondly QUALITY -every page in the work has been proofed 4 times, we are publishing for both the folk enthusiast and for university/scholar use. Therefore, our production standard is extremely high. That doesn't mean that we haven't missed something, but we've given it our best shot. The text is as clean as humanly (with computer aids) possible, the hyperlinks have all been hand checked, the internal programming for the delivery system and indexes have been carefully tested. Beta-testing is underway and everything works on PCs, Macs, and Unix/Linux systems (any OS that runs Adobe Acrobat 5.x) We think you'll all be very pleased.

Accompanying the new gazetteer, there are 9 newly created maps showing the locations mentioned (or implied) in the ballads: the UK, the Scottish Highlands, the Borders, England and Wales, Ireland, the North Atlantic, Europe and the Mediterranean, Historic London, and Historic Edinburgh.

Next, regarding the audio CD....It is intended that each of our announced products have at least one companion audio CD. Whenever possible we will deliver newly recorded or previously unreleased tracks from a wide variety of performers. My intent is to show the tune side of each collector's work as part of an ongoing, thriving musicial world. Not everyone will agree with my choices for each CD but they do represent a wide variety of styles in performance and music history, illustrating (or perhaps illuminating) how each collector's works are or have been interpreted over the years. Here's a partial list (not in any specific order) of tracks from the upcoming release:

"Loving Henry" - Jean Ritchie (Aug 2002)
"Old Bangum" - Roberts and Barrand (Aug 2002)
"Lamkin" - Anita Best (Aug 2002)
"James Hatley" - Martin Carthy (Aug 2002)
"Sweet William/Earl Brand" - Louis Killen (June 2002)
"Three Ravens" - The Patons (July 2002)
"Lady Margret" - Jen Larson (Aug 2002)
"Battle of Otterburn" - Archie Fisher (1984)
"Brown Girl" - Julia Friend (June 2002)
"Robin Hood & the Bishop of Hereford" - Heather Wood (June 2002)
"Tamlin" - Orrin Star & Russell Scholl (Sept 2002)
"Sir Patrick Spens" - Fairport Convention (recorded live, NJ, 1983)
"Silkie" - Joan Baez (recorded live, Stanford Univ. 1961)
"Gypsie Laddie" - Tom Spiers & Larkin Bryant (Aug 2002)
"Annie of Roch Royal" - Heather Heywood (July 2001)
and more....

In addition to the two CDs (text and audio) there is a large amount of additional content both the digital edition and available to registered users through our web-site. For example the text CD also contains a Preface by Michael Taft of the American Folklife Center at Library of Congress and a new essay on Ballads as Literature from Fiona McNeill, Professor of Drama and Literature, SUNY-Purchase. There are new study aids including guides to reading old and middle english characters found in the ballads, guides to Greek pronunciation (Child included 40 languages in the books), and guides to Medieval and Renaissance calendar days, coinage, and accounting (all mentioned in the ballads.) The web-site has the MIDI files, additional audio tracks (MP3s), curriculum and study guides for teachers, additional essays, and new guide to Flora, Fauna, and Food Stuffs mentioned in The English and Scottish Popular Ballads.

This is a lot to cover. Again, if I can answer any questions please post a note here or contact me directly at: info@heritagemuse.com.

Also, check out the web-site at: www.heritagemuse.com

I hope this helps to clear things up.....

David M. Kleiman