Re: GG: Message topics

[frank@clark.net]

On Mon, 13 Jan 1997, Mary Jo Watts wrote:

> No offence to anyone, but because there are so many people on f_minor
> I'm going to request that if the topic isn't related to Gould, even in
> some vague way, that extended discussion take place off the public
> address (f_minor@email.rutgers.edu).  
> 
> Examples of topics best discussed off the list: 
> 	*further technical discussion of the d-base and ascii problems 	

I protest regarding discussion of data bases! We really do need to work up
some sort of master data base for Gouldania. I have some expertise as a
discographer but nothing much yet regarding data sets. I'd like to help
work on a master set that would include:

1. Recording sessions (CBC, Columbia, etc.)
2. Issues of recordings
3. Reviews of recordings
4. Composers and compositions referred to by Gould in his writings or
broadcasts.
5. Gould's concerts.
6. Records owned by Gould.

All these sets will have to be cross-linked. I do NOT want to do ALL the
work, and indeed we will probably have to share it among ourselves. I'd
prefer to just offer wise counsel.

Now this could be confined to e-mail, but I'd like to get our ideas out to
the entire list--not that many people, really, albeit there *ought* to be
many more--so that newcomers can get roped in and possibly snookered in to
doing some of the work and also put in their ideas.

It's easy to just delete messages you don't want. Actually, the entire
data set will have at most a very few MegaBytes. I've been working on a
discography of acoustic chamber music sets. I have been able to unearth
only 161 one of these (a set is anything more than a single 78 rpm record,
in my definition, which also includes solo piano) in the entire period
from 1907-26. My dg is pretty elaborate and I engage in some very long
digression, but it only takes up a couple of hundred KiloBytes.

I don't think the dg of Gould's records would take up that much space.

Now if 95% of the subscribers are *not* interested in discographic and
bibliographic matters, I'll go along with keeping this off the list. I do
know that some of my input to this list has been appreciated, and I think
that our joining together in these endeavors will be eminently worthwhile.

Now all we need is a good Web site, or sites, to store the data set. There
should be no problem here.

Frank

Frank Forman
frank@clark.net
"It is a far, far better thing to be firmly
anchored in nonsense than to put out on the
troubled seas of thought" - John Kenneth Galbraith