Most of the ballad recordings in the Child Ballad Project were actually posted to a USENET site a number of years ago. There were 3 main contributors and a few added by volunteers. This was revised and updated at least once, with "add-ons" of new items.

(I see that was Dec. 2010 and into 2011.... but that may be the 2nd round update) I still monitor the Newsgroup, but almost no 'old' music recently... and very little of any kind.

I may have a record of the first set of posting on an old computer.

I think there were something like 8000+ recordings involved.