Steve Roud Index Now Online

Subject: Steve Roud Index Now Online
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 08:36 PM

Take a look at the Website of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library (click) - you'll see that the remarkable Steve Roud Index of Folk Songs and Broadsides is now available online, along with indexes from a number of collectors (Sharp, Karpeles, et al.).

I get a strange overlay display on Firefox and MSIE today, but it had been working very well for me on the test site for the past several weeks. The test site is now closed, so I guess the main site is open to the public - but there must be a minor error on the search page. You can get around the problem by clicking on the button for "multiple field search."

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Steve Roud Index Now Online
From: Snuffy
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 08:55 AM

Looks like this site will become a well-used resource, once they sort ouut that overlay problem, Joe

Subject: RE: Steve Roud Index Now Online
From: Dave Ruch
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 09:09 AM

Ditto - I can't wait to sit down with it for a few hours, once up & running correctly. What a fabulous resource! Technology used for ultimate good!

Subject: RE: Steve Roud Index Now Online
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 10:04 AM

Wow!! Must check it out!

Subject: RE: Steve Roud Index Now Online
From: BB
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 01:16 PM

According to Malcolm Taylor, VWML librarian, it is not yet up and running, but the guy in charge of the site tells him that it should be so before Christmas.

Keep checking!

Barbara

Subject: RE: Steve Roud Index Now Online
From: Anglo
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 01:55 PM

Well, it runs for me on Safari (Mac), though it's slow.

On Opera I get an overlay of multiple search boxes (is that the sort of thing you got, Joe?).

On IE I get a colored ball that spins around forever!

It's a great resource. Congrats, EFDSS.

---

That's what I got, Anglo. It's good to know it works on some browser - but note that it works ok for everybody as long as you select the "multiple fields" button.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Steve Roud Index Now Online
From: MartinRyan
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 03:47 PM

I'm seeing the overlay in IE also. Looking forward to having it available - still haven't rebuild my old customised version of it.

Regards

Subject: RE: Steve Roud Index Now Online
From: Kaleea
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 04:06 PM

I cannot imagine the data entry work necessary to complete the Music libraries available to us online, but I certainly appreciate being able to have these priceless resources.

Subject: RE: Steve Roud Index Now Online
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 03:53 AM

Opera, oddly enough, is actually the only browser of the six I use that displays the page correctly for me; the test site worked rather better. EFDSS will announce the new site when it's ready. Presumably there has been no announcement yet because it isn't.

The EFDSS website saga is a long one; thankfully the main site has now been re-designed by Bryan Ledgard, and other peoples' earlier versions are now just embarrassing memories. In addition to the main site and the nearly-ready VWML site, there is an online shop put together by Johnny Adams, a site for the Folk Music Journal put together by me, and one for English Dance and Song (I'm not sure who did that one).

http://www.efdss.org/
http://folkshop.efdss.org/
http://www.fmj.efdss.org/
http://eds.efdss.org/

The visual styles vary rather, as there wasn't much co-ordination in the respective planning stages. The VWML site is actually the oldest surviving design (it's been in beta for quite a while), followed by FMJ, which went live a year ago. I felt obliged, at the time, to reflect at least the better aspects of the then-current EFDSS style. Whether we'll need to adapt a bit more to the new house style I don't yet know.

When the online version of Roud works properly (and it does just seem to be a display issue: there is rather a lot of background scripting, so plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong) a lot of people will find it very useful, and it is an important move forward on which everyone involved should be congratulated. Ignore the "Google search" option for now, though, as it isn't finished and will currently return a couple of million hits for most enquiries.

Anybody who is really serious about the subject, though, would do well to subscribe individually to Steve Roud's folksong and broadside indexes; it's a one-off payment and you get your own copies, updated annually, formatted for various database programs and with all sorts of additional materials. More flexible and faster to use; I've found it absolutely invaluable.

It's the single most important finding aid for traditional song ever produced; that said, it's in the process of revision, with a team of people working on master-titles, a thesaurus of keywords, synopses and so on. That's a mammoth task and will take time, but it will advance traditional song studies incalculably.

Subject: RE: Steve Roud Index Now Online
From: Snuffy
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 09:06 AM

The overlay problem in IE has nearly disappeared since yesterday - only one box still lying over Vaughan Williams in the list of collectors.