Rollography Database
By Gerhard Dangel
The word "rollographie" simply doesn't exist and would be not easily understandable for a lot of people. The word "catalogue" can be used for a lot of different things, but will not fit for an inventory, which simply will show which items are kept.
In German a catalogue fits different things, the Sears & Roebuck catalogue as well as a "scientific" inventory, which advances to a catalogue in being "scientific".
Anyway, museums (in Europe) are using the expression "catalogue" for the about 20 volumes of "Roman coins in British collections" or the "catalogue of paintings in the Fitz-William Museum at Cambridge", which is much more than a simple listing of paintings. Now, how to name that child ?!
Regarding different spellings: It is no problems with different spellings of names. In a database you simply add an entry as a reference, which is necessary in anyway.
At the beginning of the century Skrjabin was latinised to [Scriabin or] Scriabine, with an accent degut [grave'?] on the a; the French transcribe it still different as we do in usual, the same with Tschaikowsky ...
On concert announcements and record labels Tschaikowsky is still written this way, the east Germans write "Pjotr Iljitsch Tschaikowski", the west Germans mostly "Peter I. Tschaikowski"; this could go into the thousands.
Not to forget people like "Vandyck, Ernest". This will be found in my book (is it catalogue or not) under "Vandyck, Ernest van". Looking for "Dyck, Ernest van" you'll find a reference to "Vandyck". Most European readers will look first for the "Dyck", which was surely his original name.
Michael von Zadora will be found under "Zadora", just because he wrote his name this way. Maybe his grandchildren (if ever existed) write themselves "Vonzadora" or "VonZadora". In a modern database you'll find the entry anyway, written this or that way.
Respecting the librarians rules (of our libraries) it is not a problem to make references or cross-references, like from "Tchaikowsky" to "Tschaikowsky". Those people looking for "T(s)chaikowski" I hope will notice the similarities and find the way to the title.
Kind regards
Gerhard Dangel-Reese
Augustinermuseum Freiburg
[ Editors note:
[
[ The noun "Discography" was coined by a French collector 60 years ago as
[ the name of his catalog of jazz records. It is a "bibliography of
[ discs", and I find the name quite descriptive. A bibliography is a
[ history or description of books and manuscripts, with notices of the
[ editions, dates of printing, et cetera. A "Rollography" by similarity
[ is a history and description of music rolls.
[
[ Matthew discussed the problem of leading articles in song names: "La
[ Paloma", "The Mooch", etc. Certainly the printed catalog list should
[ show the article in the same position as on the roll label, but this
[ requirement doesn't mean that the data base must store it this way.
[ In deference to the computerized alphabetic sort routine, the article,
[ for example, could easily be put in the previous field.
[
[ Robbie Rhodes |
(Message sent Sun 12 Jan 1997, 11:08:19 GMT, from time zone GMT+0100.) |
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