A Descriptive Catalogue of the James M. Carpenter Collection of Traditional Song and Drama
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Grant Holder:
Dr Julia Bishop
The James Madison Carpenter Collection of Traditional Song and Drama is one of the most important and extensive collections of its kind. The bulk of it comprises British material which Carpenter (1888-1983), a Harvard graduate, gathered in the period 1928-35. The remainder comprises material gathered from various parts of the USA and probably dates from immediately after this period. Carpenter documented folksongs of all kinds, including sea shanties, Child ballads, carols, bothy ballads, blues ballads, spirituals, nursery rhymes and children's singing games, as well as mummers plays, instrumental tunes, customs, folktales and dialect. He typed these from the dictation of contributors and also recorded many on Dictaphone cylinders.
The Collection was never published and was eventually purchased by the Library of Congress where it was microfilmed but never published or thoroughly catalogued. The aims of the project were to gain intellectual control over the Collection, make all the data easier to search and browse by scholars, performers and the general public, raise its profile and link it to the digitised images and sound files of the Collection materials at the Library of Congress in order to promote use of the Collection. The objectives of the project were to produce an item-level catalogue, and mount it online.
Generation of HTML through XSL and eXist software for searching and web delivery.
| Project start date: 2001-07 | Project end date: 2003-02 |
Subject domains:
Era(s):
Country/region(s):
| Methods used | Category |
|---|---|
| Coding and standardisation | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Collating | Data analysis |
| Indexing | Data analysis |
| Data modelling | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Text encoding - descriptive | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Record linkages | Data analysis |
| Sound encoding | Data structuring and enhancement |
| Manual input and transcription | Data capture |
Funding sources:
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Humanities Research Fund, University of Sheffield
Content types created:
Dataset/structured data
Software tools used:
XMetal
Source material used:
The digital resource was produced from digital surrogates of the papers, photographs, and sound recordings in the Carpenter Collection. These are held at the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. At present (Sept2005) the catalogue is a stand-alone facility, but it contains the necessary information to link directly to these digital surrogates mounted on a server at the Library of Congress once the necessary permissions have been obtained.
Digital resource created:
The James Madison Carpenter Collection Online Catalogue is encoded in xml, and makes specific use of the Document Type Definition known as Encoded Archival Description (EAD), developed by the Society of American Archivists. The catalogue is fully searchable at the item level using the open-source, xml software, eXist, and it is also possible to browse the Collection at all hierarchical levels. Searches may be conducted on title of item, person’s name, genre, place, date, page number and Child ballad title/number, as well as on all text. There are search help notes to facilitate the user. Searches produce a list of search results, each one leading to an item-level description which reveals the hierarchical context within the Collection of the item located as well as details of the item (format, name, placename, date, reference code, etc.), scope and content notes and contextual notes. The catalogue is complemented by three associated files, a name authority file, a placename authority file and a related items file. The user is able to link from the item-level description to further information regarding a person, a place, or other iterations of the same item elsewhere in the Collection. The catalogue thus provides access to entries regarding the intellectual items (song text and tune transcriptions, mummers' play texts and other folkloric items, plus associated materials such as photographs, letters and essays by Carpenter. It will ultimately link to the digital sound files and images of the Collection on the Library of Congress server once the necessary permissions have been obtained.
Access to digital resource:
Open Access
Data Formats created:
Extensible Markup Language (XML)
Metadata standards employed:
Encoded Archival Description (EAD)
Publications:
Bishop, Julia C., David Atkinson, Elaine Bradtke, Eddie Cass, Thomas A. Mackean, Robert Young Walser. The James Madison Carpenter Collection Online Catalogue. http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/carpenter/.
Cass, Eddie. "‘Ethel Rudkin and the Plough Plays of Lincolnshire." Folk Life 41 (2003): 96-107.
Cass, Eddie. "‘Ethel Rudkin and the Plough Plays of Lincolnshire." Folk Life 41 (2003): 96-107.
Institutions affiliated with this project:
| UK HE institutions involved: |
|---|
| University of Sheffield |
| University of Aberdeen |
| UK HE institutions involved: |
|---|
| American Folklife Center |
| Library of Congress |
Project staff and expertise:
| Principal staff member: | Dr Julia Bishop; Dr Ian Russell |
|---|---|
| Other staff: | Computing officer(s) / Technical supporter(s), Postdoctoral researcher(s) / Research assistant(s) |
| External expertise: |
| Metadata on this arts-humanities.net record | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) of record | Robert Young Walser |
| Title | A Descriptive Catalogue of the James M. Carpenter Collection of Traditional Song and Drama |
| Record created | 2005-11-07 |
| Record updated | 2011-01-14 17:13 |
| URL of record | http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/2130 |
| Citation of record | Robert Young Walser: A Descriptive Catalogue of the James M. Carpenter Collection of Traditional Song and Drama. <http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/2130> created: 2005-11-07, last updated 2011-01-14 17:13 |