The Folk Song Index and Broadside Index can be used separately, or in combination. The Bibliography/Discography supports them both.
The structure of the fields in the Folk Song Index and Broadside Index is identical, but data relating to different types of material will be entered into different fields.
Folk Song Index
Designed primarily as a finding-aid for traditional folk songs, which has three functions:
- Location of items, telling the user where a song can be found
- Identification of items: using Roud number and keywords, to identify and differentiate songs,
- Aggregation: by providing comprehensive data the Index provides the user with the evidence to make judgments about a song’s history, distribution, popularity, etc.
The Index includes English-language songs from anywhere in the world, which have been found to be sung as ‘traditional folk songs’. Separate entries are made in the Index for each occurrence of the song – i.e. if three different books include the song, three entries are made.
In addition to where the song can be found, other key details such as performer, date, collector, place collected, etc. are given in the same entry.
Once a song has been identified as having a presence in the vernacular tradition, references to versions in cheap print (primarily broadsides, chapbooks, songsters, song books) and other forms (sheet music, early gramophone records), are included. This is to facilitate historical research into the history of the song.
NB: Versions of traditional songs performed by revival singers, pop singers, classical singers, and performers in other genres, are not included. New songs in any of these genres, even if labelled as ‘folk’, are not included unless they can be shown as having entered into the tradition.
Broadside Index
Contains entries for songs published in cheap print (e.g. broadsides, chapbooks, songsters) and on early recordings (gramophone records) of the past, up to about 1920. This Index serves as a standalone finding-aid for these resources, but its main purpose is to aid historical research into traditional folk songs.
Bibliography/Discography
Includes full details of the sources indexed in the other two indexes. For example, in the Folk Song Index, songs might be referenced as being in: Williams, Folk Songs from the Upper Thames (1922) p.x, but to find the full bibliographic details (such as publisher, date of publication, physical description, etc.) the user needs to consult the Bibliography/Discography.
Each item entered here is assigned a unique ID (a number prefixed by ‘X’; e.g. X12345). This number is also entered into the ROUDBIB field in the other indexes to facilitate matching songs to the relevant bibliographic entry, and, by searching on that ID, grouping together all songs from the same source.
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