From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad

Hello,

I think that the designation of the index work must relate to the kind of 
information that it tries to provide in a complete form. In a discography, it 
is the recorded output of an artist (probably the most common type), a record 
company/a record series (such as the acoustic records in Scandinavia of the 
Gramophone Company, or British Columbia 10" Blue Label), a genre (such as 
jazz, or the symphonies of Mozart, or folk music), an instrument (such as the 
horn). 

In printed versions, the primary output (main table) is very frequently 
chronological, and the structure proposed by ARSC makes for uniformity. There 
is no problem in providing images of typical labels or rubbings of "in the 
wax" information, and even less, if it is a purely electronic work. 

There will be various kinds of indexes to get at the information if you do 
not happen to know all the dates where the precise and detailed information 
is to be found in the main table.

In a labelography, I would expect another system of arrangement; in a general 
labelography the logical thing would be by graphical element, and the primary 
output would then be by label name, subdivided by label variant. And I mean 
by that as many label, color, font, dimension variants as possible (except 
fading in sunlight, which has cheated people before). Graphical elements 
could be a gramophone with outside horn, gramophone with outside horn and 
dog, gramophone with outside horn and attentively listening children. Other 
elements could be a jockey on a racehorse (Edison Bell Winner and 1913 
Favorite). Still other elements could be the standard font used by label 
printers for many separate labels. Indexes would be record companies 
alphabetically, chronologically, colour, etc. We presently have no such work 
available.

However, we have the indispensable work by Sutton & Nauck: "American Record 
Labels and Companies. An Encyclopedia (1891-1943)". They seem to be able to 
do without the designation "labelography", and it is not as such "general" 
according to my definition above, only one of the outputs gives labels. The 
focus is on record companies. 

There is also an equally indispensable (if you really want to know your 
artefacts) book by Adam Miller of New Zealand: "Stamps on Music. The World-
wide Catalogue & Handbook of Stamps issued under Copyright Acts". It is so 
rare that it is not even listed in Nauck's resource catalogue.

On the website Doug Henkle lists a number of works under the heading "label 
bibliography", and those works are certainly not "general labelographies", 
such as that I defined above.  

The subject as defined by Doug is very narrow; I suspect that the records are 
so rare that finding variants is just not relevant. I think that he is 
perfectly entitled to use the term "labelography".

Kind regards,


George

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> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Baoshan Sheng" <[log in to unmask]>
> > With no intention to digress, If the term "discography" can not be used
> to
> > describe recording information organized by label, then which/what term 
> > can
> > describe recording information organized by work? for example, list of
> > recordings of a certain work? e.g.
> > http://a9music.com/mahler/symphony-no.1/
> > will it be workography?
> > There can also be contents organized by recording studio, e.g.
> recordings
> > made in* the 30th Street Studios in New York City*. Will this be called
> > studiography?
> > The Greenwood has published several discographies arranged by label,
> which
> > is also mentioned in the "Discography" entry in the "New Grove Dictionary
> > of
> > Music and Musicians":
> > " In 1979 the Greenwood Press established a continuing hardcover series,
> > Discographies, which considers labels, performers, composers and other
> > categories of recorded sound. Some of the label discographies fill
> several
> > volumes."
> >
> All of the above MIGHT be described as "discographies" (in various
> specialized senses.../!). What we seem to be searching for here are
> specific terms to describe discographic items (published, posted to
> the Internet, usw...?!) which are arranged by some specific item...?!
> 
> I own c. 57,000 78rpm phonorecords...! IF I list these by "musical
> genre." is the result a "genreography?" (which could be very useful
> to 78 discographers...?!)?
> 
> And, if a listing of specific record label of a given defined sort is
> called
> a "labelography," then a listing arranged by matrix-number order
> (quite common!) MUST become a "matrixography"...?!
> 
> Steven C. Barr