I don't have the time to go into all the issues at the moment, so I'll 
discuss them one at a time.

Objective:  For all versions of the same music to file alphabetically by 
primary performer.  My rule is that vocalists are always listed in score 
order- S, A, T, B.   Mezzos and contraltos are always altos.

Excerpts from longer works.

There are two options:

List the selections in alphabetical order
List the selections in the sequence of the work.

Without getting into where the preceding orchestral material begins, there 
are various points in the text of arias and, particularly, ensembles, where 
the sung text begins on different records.  The cataloger has to decide what 
the true starting point of the selection is.  Otherwise, when filed 
alphabetically, the same selection will be separated in the catalog.

Language.  For English, German and the Romance languages, the original 
language is assumed unless otherwise specified.  There should be a separate 
field that specifies the language if other than the original one.  In that 
way, a given selection can be sorted by title and performer or be divided 
into language groups before sorting, as W.E.R.M. does, this by a check box 
choice.

For Russian, Czech, Danish, etc., the English title is used but is assumed 
to be in the original language unless otherwise specified.   The original 
language can be used troughout so long as there is a check box option to do 
it either way.

There should be a separate field for where the selection is located within 
the work.  In "The Bartered Bride," for instance, the selections are 
numbered.  In Wagner, they aren't.
One solution is to specify an edition of the vocal score (for many works, 
there is no orchestral score available.) and use page numbers- see the 1936 
Gramophone Shop Encyclopedia's listings of Wagner.

There should be a web site with complete opera libretti with the standard 
translations- by now, most used for 78 recordings are out of copyright. 
It's then an easy matter to type in a phrase in the original or for a 
translated text to identify the selection.  Those libretti should have the 
vocal score page number added throughout, at least for definable chunks of 
the music.  This is a tool that is badly needed.

Arias should be listed by first line, not title.  There should be a tab that 
brings the user to a table of cross-references for aria names as used on 
records when the opening phrase was not used.

The composer, larger work and selection should be listed in that order.

That's a start.

Steven Smolian


-----Original Message----- 
From: Charlie Dahan
Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2015 8:26 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Record cataloging tools

I use Filemaker Pro - Searchable, sortable, and whenever I think of some
other data point I'd like to track, I can just add it.  Though that 78
collectors software looks promising as I would liek to add tiffs, audio,
video easily.

Charlie

------------------
Charlie B. Dahan, Professor
Department of Recording Industry
Middle Tennessee State University
222 Mass Comm, Box 21
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On 31 March 2015 at 07:07, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> This is the one I used to use. I agree that it's a nice robust and
> flexible database program. What finally drove me away was that it relied 
> on
> Gracenote and freedb and I didn't want to clean up metadata once for a
> database and once for my digital library of files. I should ask the
> Tag&Rename guy if he can easily write a program that scrapes up all the 
> tag
> info in a defined library folder or drive and grabs it into a database
> separated by filename. That's essentially what iTunes and all the library
> programs spit out.
>
> If I recall correctly, the version of CaTraxx that I used didn't rip CDs,
> that was the downfall. A newer version may. If so, will it save in all the
> formats that dBPowerAmp will, and does it employ Accurip?
>
> Sam B clued me in on what PerfectMeta is, it's the thing in dBPowerAmp
> where it taps in to a whole bunch of metadata sources, and you can select
> one, some or all. It does a little bit better than relying strictly on
> Gracenote and/or freedb, but not much better. I told Sam what it is very
> good for is stuff like artist-released CDs which have CD text and are too
> under-the-radar to show up in Gracenote. Tag&Rename has even more robust
> meta-sourcing, as I described previously. The good thing about its ability
> to look in Amazon.com, .uk. .de and .jp is that it can find more correct
> metadata for some titles (Amazon is usually supplied by the record
> companies themselves, and somethimes they actually copy-edit what they
> submit and make sure it makes more sense and is more accurate than typical
> crowd-sourced jibberish). Also, the ability to search that LP database is
> extremely helpful. Net-net, I find Tag&Rename the most useful meta-editing
> tool in the box. dBPowerAmp is very useful in getting the meta right at 
> the
> time of CD ripping.
>
> Keep in mind I'm very picky about things like artist names, titling of
> classical works and that sort of thing. My main playback device is a
> Logitech Squeezebox Touch, and the Logitech library software is definitely
> science-based, so if an artist isn't named exactly the same across an
> entire library, they will show up under multiple names. Same with 
> classical
> pieces. It's the same in iTunes, by the way. If I want to find George
> Solti's performance of the Mahler 8th, for example, I don't want to wade
> through Georg Solti, George Solti, Solti George, Chicago Symphony/George
> Solti, etc. I assume this sort of thing is equally important to a library
> or institution, because non-uniform naming in metadata messes up database
> searches. The enemy to this kind of order is the hodge-podge crowd-source
> mess that is Gracenote and freedb.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gene Baron" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2015 7:36 AM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Record cataloging tools
>
>
>  I use Catraxx.  It works well, though I created a lot of custom fields 
> and
>> since I work a lot with MS Access, its underyling database, I tend to use
>> it to look things up and export to Excel.  Thanks.
>>
>> Gene
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 7:18 AM, Erik Dix <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>  Collectorz is what I use. Not sure how well it works for vinyl though.
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.collectorz.com/
>>>
>>> Erik Dix
>>> Notre Dame Archives
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 3/30/2015 5:35 PM, Sam Brylawski wrote:
>>>
>>>  Greetings,
>>>>
>>>> I'm taking an informal survey to see what kind of database
>>>> applications any subscribers are using to catalog their personal
>>>> collections. Brian? Beyond Category? An Access app? A Filemaker one?
>>>>
>>>> I know there are a lot of file tag utilities out there. I think Tom F.
>>>> especially recommended PerfectMeta (correct me if I'm wrong). But what
>>>> I'd really like to know of are tools that you use for personal
>>>> cataloging of CDs, LPs, 78s, etc. In particular, tools you really
>>>> like!
>>>>
>>>> Thanks.
>>>>
>>>> Sam Brylawski
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>


-- 
Charlie Dahan
Professor
Recording Industry Department
Middle Tennessee State University
Gennett Discography Blog - www.gennettdiscography.com
Gennett Records Facebook - facebook.com/gennettrecords