The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #103171 Message #2101679
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
13-Jul-07 - 11:50 AM
Thread Name: publication does a doubtful service to folksongs
Subject: RE: publication does a doubtful service to folksongs
The Carpenter website is the result of the initial indexing project only.
Preparing the materials themselves for publication is obviously a very large task requiring funding of the sort not usually available to the folk arts in Britain; the physical collection, however, belongs to the Library of Congress, and American funding allows the project to continue. The aim is eventually to make the raw materials available in digitised form via the web (the initial digitisation is already completed), and to publish a full print edition with the appropriate scholarly apparatus.
This is liable to take some time, though we must hope not as long as Greig-Duncan, which took about twenty years to complete. I don't know what stage the team has reached, but I do know that the work continues.
The recordings Peter Kennedy was selling copies of are sometimes reproduced at the wrong speed (the late Bruce Olson went into technical details at some point; I forget whether here or on the BALLAD-L list) and there may be a question as to their legality. Probably the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, as the owners of the original recordings, would be able to advise.