Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)

Subject: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: robomatic
Date: 12 Jun 25 - 03:31 PM

I put this query under 'TECH' because it relates to digital audio conversion. But it is a matter of titling, labeling, and ordering rather than actual tech hardware.

Over years I have converted many LPs and tapes to digital format. Most of them were from my family and a few were purchased off the web.
My question refers to filing them in computer memory. My instinct was to “keep it simple” Artist, Album, Song or Performance. There are questions that are individualitic. I have a lot of classical music, and a lot of pop music. I personally separate the classical, such items as spoken word, but I don’t distinguish between popular music genres, and I’ve not gone ‘proper’ with using performers’ last names, so in my stored memory, Allan Sherman will appear ahead of King Crimson ahead of Pink Floyd. What I am curious about is I am seeing many people who use ‘periods’ instead of spaces. Now a ‘space’ in a label is a character as is a period, so if you have both kinds of labels, they will not alphabetize together.
Are there conventions for proper labeling and ordering of converted music?
I spent a lot of time playing old family broadway albums through my computer and using its soundboard to turn out wave files. Then I took the wave stream, broke it into the appropriate cuts, and converted those to mp3s.I had recognition software that could provide the labels for the cuts. I usually had to do a look-up on the album title, which would return with the album cover and labels for the cuts, but occasionally the program would correctly identify the album by the pattern of the cuts alone. Those labels I picked up off the internet did not have periods or dots between the words, but I don’t know if they adhered to any standard.
Writing this up has led me to superfluous wonderings as to whether Europeans have to worry about things like umlauts and cedillas, and how the hell the Chinese, Japanese manage to order their ideographic titles? What do librarian do on other planets?

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Jun 25 - 04:35 PM

It's all in the metadata for many of these files.

If you have the digital file or scan and the file has an easy name (perhaps a date, number, and the performer name - 20250611-123-PinkFloyd - and that's in the data collection, you can find it with any of the parts. But you can make it more versatile by planning ahead.

If you have a database to accompany the folders (all of the folders, not separate databases per folder) you can start with the file name and then in other columns add the particulars that are searchable, plus notes.

I've been scanning 35mm slides at a local museum for the past five years, and the principle is the same. The slide itself has a long name that allows for information (example: A2016-019_02_02043.tif) allows me to see that the collection began in 2016, and the 019 and 02 are categories the museum uses to sort from there. The five digit number is the particular slide's number (the scanner adds the next number to each slide at that point.) We expect to end up using all 5 digits (right now I'm at about 04500 in my scanning, but we may end up in the 20500 range, so always make sure you start with a couple of extra zeros in the file numbering scheme.)

The main thing is to try to think bigger than you need, because you may find that it gives you the wiggle room for adding more files and filing and sorting later. Excel spreadsheets get used a lot (they do the math and such for accounting uses) but if you can use Access or an equivalent free software (Apache OpenOffice) you'll find it's a great tool for searching later.

Go looking for some of the online fora for archivists. is from Library & Information Science Academic Blog and might offer a good starting point.

Like a lot of projects, the more time you spend planning in the front end, the less time you have to spend fixing things that didn't work the way you hoped.

Good luck! (From Planet Texas)

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: Helen
Date: 12 Jun 25 - 04:36 PM

Well, I like the way my Microsoft Windows organises music files into folders named according to the artist, and then the individual albums are separate sub-folders within the main folder. They sort according to the artist name, and if I felt so inclined I could rename the folders of individual artists e.g. Frank Zappa, and Dweezil Zappa to Zappa, Frank and Zappa, Dweezil so that they sorted better alphabetically.

Also, if I felt so inclined I could have main folders with music genre headings with the artist folders filed within those but I still use Windows Media Player and there is an option to identify the genre when I digitally copy the files from a CD so there is no need to file the albums under a genre folder.

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: Helen
Date: 12 Jun 25 - 04:38 PM

Good advice, SRS.

Yes, and good luck from Planet Oz!

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: DaveRo
Date: 12 Jun 25 - 04:52 PM

It's not clear whether you're talking about file names, for these mp3 files, or ID3 tags (metadata). 'Computer memory' suggests file names. There is to my knowledge no standard and I've not seen periods used as spaces.

I file them (mp3s) in a hierarchical directory (folder) structure. For pop (inc folk) music:
Artist > album > track
with each track filename starting with the track number 'nn - '.

For classical, it varies:
Composer > album > work > movement
or
Album > composer > work > movement
or
Composer > work > movement

But an mp3 file can also have metadata. Your 'recognition software' may have filled that in, and downloads will probably include 'tags': artist, album, track names, year, etc.

You can get programs that will change filenames to match the metadata, and vice-versa, and enforce a filename standard that you define. EasyTag is one I've used.

Media players may sort tracks either way, but mostly use metadata. They often build a song/track index based on metadata and ignore the filenames. This is OK for pop music but not for classical in my experience.

I tend to play albums (or works) rather than individual tracks, so I usually play a directory (folder) rather than using the media player's own index.

Sorting Japanese, or an ideographic language, is an interesting subject. What order do words appear in a dictionary? You may be able to say a word, but not write it, or see it (maybe not in Kanji) but not say it.

However, both filenames and ID3 tags can be in Japanese.

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: Hagman
Date: 12 Jun 25 - 07:11 PM

Speaking as a librarian from another planet (Oz...) there are lots of free digital music databases available, but maintaining a database consistently is a time-consuming task.

I find that if you put enough info for retrieval in a filename - Author/Composer/Artist - Title - Date, for instance, and file in subfolders however you like to file, using a (free!) sophisticated Windows Explorer-based program like Everything gives instant retrieval of any or all of those terms.

Just one big folder for Music is all that is required, if you don't want to put in the work.... (and you can search on all file extensions and various media as well.)

Gets my vote for most useful software program of all time.

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: robomatic
Date: 13 Jun 25 - 01:25 PM

Thank you all for the swift responses. I imported many of my conversions into Apple's music software (Windows version) which had places to put the metadata. That recognition software which took information from the internet seemed to latch onto some of it as well, so memorably in the case of an old recording of On The Town, I was able to procure performers, song titles, and information I considered metadata, just off of the assembly of WAVEs.

One OTHER thing I noticed was that when I copied the information from one magnetic disk to another, the computer warned me that I would 'lose information'. The only thing I could think of was that the disks were formatted differently. The old, well-used drive was NTFS and the brand new drive was exFAT. I went ahead with the transfer with no apparent problems, and the file information data returned the same storage values, but I think there might have been some characters that did not make the cut.

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Jun 25 - 02:04 PM

Accession numbers.

If everything has a unique identifier, the categorizations can be an afterthought.

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jun 25 - 03:01 PM

Accession number is probably going to be the long file name.

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: DaveRo
Date: 13 Jun 25 - 03:10 PM

robomatic wrote: the computer warned me that I would 'lose information'...

There is some file information - e.g. ownership, permissions - in NTFS filesystems which ExFAT cannot hold. Also some file types - though you're unlikely to have those among media files.

I suspect that the way many people have their files organised - a folder for artist, a subfolder for album, and named tracks within that - is what most CD rippers do by default. ISTR Windows Media Player did that, and the ones I have used do. Such a hierarchical organisation is portable to a variety of devices - eg a car player.

There are different versions of metadata tags. Old files might have ID3v1 tags - many of mine do - which limits the length and character set of the fields.

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Jun 25 - 06:11 PM

Very bad idea to use the filename as an accession number. The location of the file will change as the file system gets reorganized. You need a number allocated when the file is first loaded into the system, which will label that file forever.

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jun 25 - 08:56 PM

No, Jack, it isn't a bad idea. It's essential. The file (document/item) name doesn't change when you move it from one place to another.

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jun 25 - 10:05 AM

If the accession number is something based on the initial file timestamp rendered into the filename you don't need to remember what the next accession number will be. For batch imports their may be duplicate timestamps so they may need to add a suffix added by hand.

With a bit of tinkering around on the command line you can get the info needed into spreadsheet, make up commands to rename the files in that and then run them.

I do that for photos. For mp3s I've never felt the need. The metadat a is only going to change if I change it.

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Jun 25 - 11:54 AM

I assumed "full long file name" meant the path (which will change if you relocate the file in a different hierarchy) - if not, what DOES it mean?

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jun 25 - 04:40 PM

Jack, see the example I gave earlier:
(example: A2016-019_02_02043.tif) allows me to see that the collection began in 2016, and the 019 and 02 are categories the museum uses to sort from there. The five digit number is the particular slide's number (the scanner adds the next number to each slide at that point.)

If you build a file name that includes all of the pertinent data (as shown) then wherever that file ends up, it ties in with your database and all of the notes that go with it. The computer location (C:/Music/Folk Collection-XYZ/123_Event/) doesn't prevent you from finding C:/Music/Folk Collection-XYZ/123_Event/A2016-019_02_02043.tif.

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 15 Jun 25 - 01:16 AM

"Ambient Findability"   SRS can direct you.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

small> Consider it Dewey Decimal on steroids.

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: DaveRo
Date: 15 Jun 25 - 02:39 AM

I read a post a while ago by a teacher at a US school lamenting that their students no longer thought about where they should file a document on their computer, they just saved it anywhere and searched for it later. Devising a hierarchical folder system, as most of us who used early personal computers did, doesn't occur to them.

File not found

This changed approach to document storage is in reflected music players. You may still be able to play a file or the files in a folder - an album or a symphony say. I do that in VLC, which has been around for 30 years. But that's not how the designers of recent players expect you to use them. They scan your music libraries and build an index of artists, albums, and tracks using only the metadata. You can only play an album or a symphony provided the metadata is correct.

Which can be a problem if like me you digitised the music over three decades and entered many ID tags wrongly, or not at all. Yesterday, in the car, I was playing 'Unknown Artist - Unknown album - Unknown track' off an SD card.

(I found that old blog via this reddit BTW.)

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: Helen
Date: 15 Jun 25 - 03:27 AM

Funny, not funny DaveRo!

Hubby who is a highly qualified, although now retired, IT Coordinator has a similar problem on the digital system in his new-ish car. If there are a couple of albums by the same artist which have the same tracks the system plays them one after the other rather than playing according to artist/album title/track list, e.g. if he has an original album and then a remixed version or live version released some time later it repeats each track according to the track number. I'm sure if he sat there and reconfigured the track browsing list he could sort it out, but ... well, who knows, maybe life gets in the way. It's ok when it's a good track but when I sit there gritting my teeth thinking, is it over yet? and it repeats the song..... :-(

LOL

And just to clarify, I left the planet of Librarianship just as the digital age was revving up, so I missed a lot of the cool, clever digital tricks of the system. We still used actual, IRL cardboard customer cards as our borrowing record in the public library - one card per item borrowed. (Am I really THAT old?)

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 15 Jun 25 - 06:14 AM

> Devising a hierarchical folder system

We had to because we had restricted filespace; and we could, because we were taught how to. But even the Revered Elders of the trade tended to mislay files, otherwise we wouldn't have recursive directory searching options for (eg) grep.

.... And I was going to add something about youngsters treating directory structures like the orderly disposition of clothes around their bedrooms (Mum will sort it out on washing day), until I looked up, and lo! the contents of our study man cave.

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 15 Jun 25 - 07:04 AM

I sympathise with your hubby, Helen: there's far too much alleged intelligence shoved into software where it doesn't fit, and only gets in the way of what Advanced Players want to do without simplifying anything for anybody. "Smart" is a synonym for "our product manager is thicker than tarmac" and/or "we can't think of any other way of justifying this price rise".

Meanwhile, back at the point, your hubby's experience reminded me of a couple of lines from the Pharmaceutical Shanty (by Ruiridh Greig):

When you cry out "please refrain!"
And they go and sing it all again

.... but I'd have to check whether I can post the whole shanty here.

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jun 25 - 09:21 AM

"Devising a hierarchical folder system, as most of us who used early personal computers did, doesn't occur to them." If most of their experience is with things like iOS that doesn't allow access to the file system, or with applications that do their own filing with defaults that work fine for simple stuff I can see why.

I'm not sure some people using music players even have the concept of a file

Subject: RE: Tech: Librarians on other planets (Labeling)
From: robomatic
Date: 15 Jun 25 - 05:48 PM

Well, here's a practical example of the kind of things I've gone through. Over the years my family assembled, in addition to a significant number of Broadway and classical albums, a fairly large collection of high fidelity, open reel pre-recorded tapes. The tapes dated from the 60s and 70s, and outlived our Japanese reel-to-reel player. My father sent them to me and I was able to digitize most of them. Many of them were Gilbert & Sullivan Operettas done by the D’Oyly Carte, and recorded by London ffrr. So, for me they have been stored hierarchicly under “Gilbert and Sullivan” followed simply by title. I could have gone by order of composition, performance, etc. but title seemed to be all I required, until I inherited some older LPs and added them to the hard drive, so now I had different performances of the same operettas. I think I parenthesized the estimated dates for those.