Bodleian Ballad collection on-line

Subject: Bodleian Ballads on-line
From: Martin _Ryan
Date: 22 Sep 99 - 04:45 PM

The following just arrived and may be of interest:

Thanks to funding from the Higher Education Funding Councils via the JISC Committee on Electronic Information, the 30,000 broadside ballads in the Bodleian Library are now available online. There is background information on the collections, a catalogue with indexes of the titles, first lines, authors, performers, subjects and printers and an iconographic index of the 17,000 illustrations; all linked to an image database of the ballad sheets themselves. Where a score is given on the sheet, a rendition is provided.
Visit the ballads website at
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/ballads/
For the next few weeks the database and interface will remain in the final stages of construction -- please be patient if you encounter problems in the meantime.


Mike Heaney
Bodleian Broadside Ballads Project

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballads on-line
From: Allan C.
Date: 22 Sep 99 - 04:55 PM

Bodleian Ballads

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballads on-line
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Sep 99 - 08:44 PM

I will add this here and also add it as a separate thread

Someone has a project...still unfinished, I see, to create a Concordance to the Child Ballads you can see some of the project now....

Subject: Bodleian Ballad collection
From: weerover
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 04:07 PM

I have been browsing this collection and find that the detail and definition of the images is such that I can't make out most of the words. Is there any way to enhance the images?

wr.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 04:33 PM

Sounds like you're only seeing the small size images. Use the button at the top left of the page with a Plus Sign (+) in the magnifying glass to get a large version of the image.

Mick

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection
From: MMario
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 04:38 PM

some of them can still be pretty bad. I sometimes copy the image and paste it into WORD - then set the WORD display to 200 percent

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection
From: weerover
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 04:38 PM

That appears to have done the trick - thanks, Mick.

wr.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection
From: weerover
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 04:40 PM

Mario, size doesn't seem to be the issue: I had tried doing what you suggest but it doesn't seem to make many of them more readable.

wr.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 05:48 PM

Quality is variable. For those I am interested in, I copy to Adobe Photoshop and print, or use the functions of Adobe to get the best image I can before printing. With some, I still have to pencil in poorly visible words on the print as I figure them out. Sometimes help is needed if preservation and/or printing is very poor.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection
From: nutty
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 06:11 PM

A larger monitor screen also helps. I have a 17inch but would really love to increase to 19 inch as you get an increased text size without any distortion of the original manuscript.

A situation where size really does matter ... grin

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 02:15 PM

I tried to post this link to "Drink England Dry" [Ballads Catalogue: Harding B 25(1403)] at Bodley. I'm sure the URL is right, but the link doesn't work. Does the Bodleian Ballad Colleciton not allow direct links to broadsides? Is there a workaround?
If not, is there a standard way of referring to a broadside that will make it easy to find by searching?
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 03:02 PM

The easy way is to put the first word(s) in browse index.
Put -old england- there and a list shows up.
Perhaps Malcolm knows how to get directly to the sheet with a link; I failed a few times before I gave up and just went to browse or search.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 03:10 PM

One should read the copyright information linked by Allen C (2nd post).
I wonder if posting texts of broadsides in Mudcat violates the personal use clause in the "Copyright Information"?

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 03:30 PM

I suppose there's a chance the images themselves may have some level of copyright protection, but certainly not the texts. Texts that old would all certainly be in the public domain, although one could argue for protection of the images because they were made recently.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 03:57 PM

The link goes there for me, but shows nothing. It may be a protective device...it may be javascript. Can't tell

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 03:59 PM

It may be this

"Page Not Found
To OULS
Home »   Page Not Found

Page Not Found

The Bodeian website was recently redesigned. This means the bookmarks and addresses you have used in the past may no longer work.

Please try the following to help you navigate:

www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/bodley - The new Bodleian home page
Admissions
Opening Hours
Reading Rooms
Site Map
Contact Us
www.ouls.ox.ac.uk - The Oxford University Library Services home page

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 06:11 PM

From the re-designed website, I put ballads in search and was directed to www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/ballads/ballads.htm, which brings up the old Broadside Ballads Catalogue page; I think this is what Joe and I already had bookmarked.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 07:48 PM

Pirating of the images themselves, whether by copying them to a private website or (far worse) by hot-linking is of course forbidden, beside being illegal; though permission may be granted for reproduction under certain circumstances: see the relevant pages at the site for details.

Transcription of the texts is perfectly ok, but normal courtesy demands that the source be acknowledged with the Bodleian URL and the shelfmark of the item transcribed. It's my own feeling that spelling, capitalization and punctuation should be transcribed faithfully and not 'corrected' or modernized, since such editorial interventions tend to misrepresent the material.

There are various ways of linking to material there. My own preference is to prepare 'custom' links to the basic listings for all examples of a particular song rather than to individual images, as this forces people to look at the publishing details and so on first. The context is important and should be shown, even if people are really only looking for free raw material and don't much care where it comes from.

You need to be able to edit search strings in order to do that, but it isn't difficult; though it requires a little time and patience, and it's vital that each link is tested first to ensure that the syntax is correct and there is no interference with the Bodleian server. Masato and I both worked out how to do that several years ago, and so far as I know all such links still work.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 01:17 AM

That's odd. I know I've posted links to Bodleian broadsides before, for example, in these messages:

BRYAN O'LYNN

STEAM COACHES NOW ALL THE GO

THE WORKING MAN'S A.B.C.

But I just rechecked the links in those messages, and I find they don't work.

Apparently something has changed at the Bodleian web site.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 04:45 PM

I second everything Malcolm has said here. I tend to use the search facility all the time and I've never had problems with it. Occasionally some images have not been available but this is rare.
Yes the images themselves have quite rightly been copyrighted. they own the images and have gone to great lengths to make them available.
Transcriptions are absolutely in the public domain, but as Malcolm says, it is common practice and common curtesy that all transcriptions used are copied faithfully and are acknowledged in full reference. This also acknowledges the work of the original collectors like Harding who preserved them for us.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 05:10 PM

Steve Gardham: Have you tried TODAY?

I now find that I can't view any broadside, even when I do a search "from scratch" and follow the links from within the website. The search seems to work, but then when you click the final link that is supposed to display the broadside, no image comes up.

Something is definitely wrong.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 05:16 PM

As I've already said, this has happened before. Don't panic. Wait a few days. Then try again.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 05:21 PM

Do I look as if I'm panicked?

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 06:04 PM

I don't know what you look like; but you were starting to shout, which is usually a bad sign. Let's leave it for a day or two and see what happens.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: nutty
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 06:15 PM

If you have a real problem lasting more than a day I would suggest contacting the webmaster - a gentleman called Thaddeus Lipinski on [e-mail].

I have dealt with him in the past and he is very helpful and is often not aware that there is a problem if it is only affecting those of us who access the site from outside the university.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Sep 08 - 02:02 PM

Can get the index, but can't bring up any of the ballads.

Something wrong.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: nutty
Date: 14 Sep 08 - 02:38 PM

As the university is on holiday still they may not be aware that there is a problem (see my previous post) and email could solve the problem

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Sep 08 - 03:11 PM

Just been on and everything is fine. Typed in 'beautiful', clicked on first item on list, brought up the image, enlarged it, no problem.
Someone else like to have a go just to confirm mine's not a fluke?

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: nutty
Date: 15 Sep 08 - 03:27 PM

I had no problem Steve .... looks like its fixed

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballad collection on-line
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Sep 08 - 03:53 PM

Yep, fixed.