Re: arsclist record archive

[Premise Checker <checker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I can supply a temporary password to this database to anyone who sends me
an e-mail. Book librarians do a mediocre job catalog sound recordings. I
used this database when searching for post-acoustic recordings of works in
my acoustic chamber music sets discography. (The majority of the works
made it to electric 78s.) Also to find alternative issues of Mravinsky
recordings. For records that have several works, you'll find that each
work gets a separate entry, that some works don't make it at all, that
it's impossible to find who performed what work, and so on. (I used a
CD-ROM version, actually, not the online version.) The coverage is spotty
and I'd never use it to find the run of all Westminster WLs, for example. 

One problem is that each library does its own entering, resulting in
little standardization. I use this resource only to see if a work has been
very recenly recorded, as a last resort, or to touch up some other work.

But it's great for books and you can find out which libraries contain
_The Metaphysics of Liberty_ (Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer Academic, 1989),
by me, for example.

Frank

On 2002-12-10, John Ross opined [message unchanged below]:

> It certainly won't include "every LP ever made", but it seems likely that 
> the OCLC database used by library catalogers might have a very large 
> proportion of them. It's a common online catalog that includes entries for 
> a huge number of books, documents and other items, including phonorecords.
> 
> Bruno, the cataloging specialists at your university's library probably 
> already have access to OCLC or will know how to get access for you. Or 
> failing that, it has been my experience that the OCLC staff are extremely 
> helpful and quite willing to lead non-librarians through the necessary 
> steps toward using the resource. Their Web site is at www.oclc.org.
> 
> John Ross
> Northwest Folklife
> Seattle, Washington USA
> 
> At 03:28 PM 12/10/2002 -0500, you wrote:
> >As I understood the post, Mr. Weber was looking for a data archive...as it
> >turned out, on LP records...with the intention of copying data records on
> >phonorecords he (or his institution) holds, which would reduce the amount
> >of data entry needed to catalog the holdings. As I see it, much of the point
> >of collections, particularly institutional collections, is to keep an
> >adequate
> >and current catalog of the holdings; first, so that the collector
> >(individual
> >or institutional) knows exactly what they do (and don't) own, to avoid
> >duplicate acquisitions, and, second, because many users (in the case of
> >institutional collections) are looking for the information rather than the
> >actual sound contents of the recordings. The alternative..."oh, if we have
> >it it's somewhere in that stuff on those shelves over there..." seems an
> >illogical way to run a library (and possibly a personal collection?).
> 
> 
> -
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-
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Copyright of individual posting is owned by the author of the posting and
permission to re-transmit or publish a post must be secured
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