RE: jewish music databases/Keynote

[Jewish Music Institute <jewishmusic...>]

In reply to Eliott
JTS is so fortunate in having a fantastic collection,  a pretty ideal 
environment and a
dedicated and knowledgeable full time Jewish Music Librarian. I was very 
grateful to be
able to sit at Eliott's feet and learn from a master.  I understand fully and 
humbly
that it takes many years to learn the skills and finesse of the codes and rules 
of the
library profession.

But one must be practical.  We cant afford all that.  Not yet anyway.  We, like 
many I
suspect, have a collection of recordings and printed material, and many people 
wanting
access to it.  Our first priority is to put in on an easily searchable database 
program
made with our needs in mind, so that people will be able to reach what they 
need.
Keynote will do that for us, and the refinements can be added as and when we 
have the
energy (human and cash) to do it.

Keynote is a pretty damn useful tool, and has special features that others 
don't even
have, such as the searchable tune-finder and a simple to use Hebrew font. Its 
very
enjoyable to work with, in fact quite addictive.  Its really satisfying to 
enter data
onto an interesting database and see it grow under your eyes and fingers. Do 
others find
that?

Any system is only a structure, and the skill of the cataloguer is paramount in
inputting all the correct information.  But its more or less possible for 
anyone to copy
the name of a recording or book, artist or author and catalogue or library of 
congress
number in the first instance, and put in as many key words as they thing will 
be useful
and once that is done the item can be found on a shelf and further input and 
refinement
made when time and funds and the appropriate staff  and knowledge can be 
assembled.

This discussion on databases on this list is so valuable in refining systems 
and ideas,
and I appreciate all the contributions that have been posted.  Keep the 
postings on list
please as they help us all.   I am willing to give away 6 copies of Keynote to 
anyone as
long as they are willing to give us feed back and join a Keynote-users list for 
feedback
to us and help to them, so that together we can identify and solve problems of 
the
software and the discipline. I hope we will help to form universally accepted 
standards.

Re: the specific queries about keynote: I also don't understand 'how' our system
recognizes variant titles and the same song, but it does.  I will ask Gregori 
to give
you the detail, but that may be because he knows how the computer and the 
program can be
made to work, and he understands what is needed. As for correlating with OCLC 
should we
decide to, Gregori will write a utility to correlate the fields in our system 
to the
codes in oclc, or Cadenza or whatever.   (utilities can also be made to convert 
data on
existing databases to Keynote).

A debate that we are having now is how to organize the shelves and the shelf 
marks for
LPs say.  Do we just number items 1 to infinity and put them on the shelf in 
the order
you catalogue them, or do you try to organize records into categories and 
number them Y1
for Yiddish and L1 for liturgical.  Or do you get into a mess that way.  What 
are the
advantages over computer browsing over shelf browsing.  Should self browsing of 
records
be considered, or are recordings too fragile for that?  Any help on these 
question would
be great.
I may not have an Eliott to hand, but I am glad I have got a Paul (Holden), 
discovered
on this list, and we look forward to meeting each other and Abbi, and Jonathan 
next week
in our library.  Anyone nearby wanting to come and work in the library, please 
get in
touch.
Geraldine

Geraldine Auerbach MBE
Director, Jewish Music Institute
The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
Tel +44 (0)20 7898 4308   Fax +44 (0)20 8909 1030
E-mail jewishmusic (at) jmi(dot)org(dot)uk
Website www.jmi.org.uk





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