It's good to know that there is much interest in a collective index of
mechanical music publications.  I started compiling one some time ago,
and yes, it is a monumental task.  My index will include not only
articles from journals of the mechanical music societies and organiza-
tions, but also those found in popular and scientific publications.

The Music Index, which includes articles from all types of music-
related publications, has listed MBSI articles since 1976.  (I recog-
nize the names of many MMD'ers as authors of these articles).  The
Music Index is available in printed form and also on CD-ROM with
articles listed from as far back as 1979.  I'm not sure if the CD-ROM
is available only to libraries or if individuals may also purchase it.

I am creating my index in WordPerfect format.  For several reasons,
I prefer to type in the listings myself rather than scanning them.
As Julian Dyer and Terry Smythe noted, the current scanning technology
for text is not entirely accurate and numerous corrections must be
made.  For me, it is more frustrating to go through a document and
find and correct these errors than to type it in correctly the first
time.  Since I am a fast typist, I can have a list of articles input
in the same amount of time or less than it takes to scan and correct
the same list.

Other reasons for creating my own document are uniformity of format,
word search capability, the ability to rearrange and/or copy articles
into new subheadings or chapters, and the ability to mark or code the
document for an author/subject index and generate that index instantly.
The document should transfer easily to either printed format, disk, or
CD-ROM.

The biggest hindrance for completion of this project is lack of time.
That is the one element that cannot be created so easily.

Joyce Brite
Player Piano and Mechanical Music Exchange     * Buy - Sell - Trade *
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~brite/