Bach Bibliography http://www.music.qub.ac.uk/tomita/bachbib/

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Bach Bibliographyhttp//www.music.qub.ac.uk/tomit
a/bachbib/

• Yo Tomita
• School of Music / Sonic Arts Research
  CentreQueen's University Belfast, UK

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What is Bach Bibliography?

• Online resource for scholars studying the life
  and works of J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
• Offering a range of useful features
• Closely-integrated cross references
• Highly-structured search options
• Inclusion of unpublished papers, thesis, online
  review of hot-from-the-press books

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What is Bach Bibliography?

• Released online in May 1997
• Currently accessed c.200 times per day
• Receives contributions from c.70 scholars world
  wide.

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Focus of this presentation

• Background
• Search Strategies
• Under the Bonnet
• Future Plans

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Background

• J. S. Bach is one of the most well-researched
  composers
• Flood of new publications every year
• Research becoming increasingly specialized and
  fragmented
• Biographical Studies, Historical Studies,
  Manuscript Studies, Compositional Process,
  Rhetorical Approach, Music Analysis, Symbolism,
  Theological Studies, Mathematical Approach,
  Historical Performance, Interpretation, etc.
• Difficult to follow the latest research

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History of Bibliographical Studies

• Table 1 The coverage of Bach-Schrifttums
  published in the Bach-Jahrbuch

Coverage Items BJ Compiler Notes
18001904 19051910 19101944 19451952 19531957 19581962 19631967 19681972 19731977 19781980 19811985 19861990 19911995 19962000 453 321 299 941 402 807 715 884 845 560 1144 1174 1331 c.1500 2 (1905) 7 (1910) (see notes) 40 (1953) 45 (1958) 53 (1967) 59 (1973) 62 (1976) 66 (1980) 70 (1984) 75 (1989) 80 (1994) 86 (2000) 91 (2005) Max Schneider Max Schneider Christoph Wolff Wolfgang Schmieder Wolfgang Schmieder Erhard Franke Rosemarie Nestle Rosemarie Nestle Rosemarie Nestle Rosemarie Nestle Rosemarie Nestle Rosemarie Nestle Karin Germerdonk mostly German literatures no pp given some with page numbers in Bach-Bibliographie (1985) more systematically described projection based on data shown in Figure 1
Blue -- also repr. in Bach-Bibliographie, ed.
Christoph Wolff (Kassel, 1985)
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Data collection

• Main body of data come from the Bach-Jahrbuch
• Support receiving from
• Many individuals
• The American Bach Society
• The Riemenschneider Bach Institute, Ohio
• The Bach-Archiv Leipzig
• Lots of my time being invested into the
  collection of additional information

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Size

• Currently it contains 19,029 records
• Table 2
• Comparing the scope of bibliographical data for
  Bach Studies

Bibliographical Reference items coverage notes
The on-line Bach Bibliography Bach-Schrifttums in Bach-Jahrbuch RILM online IIMP CD-ROM (reviewed in 1998) ArticleFirst 18300 9876 7857 1588 629 18002003 18001995 19672003 19201995 19902003 plus c.700 of pre-1800 ref. see Table 1 for details keyword search Bach keyword search Bach keyword search Bach
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Search Strategies

• DEMONSTRATION

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Under the Bonnet (1)

• Database format
• 1985-86 (ViewStore on BBC Micro)
• 1986-92 (dBase IV on IBM compatible PC)
• 1992- (Idealist on Windows PC)
• (1997- comma delimited text file on the
  Webserver)
• Relational Database
• Main Bibliography database
• Periodical database (also managing abbreviations
  and the progress of research)

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Under the Bonnet (2)Table 3Selection criteria
of references for the Bach Bibliography

• Selected references
• Published books of scholarly contents and reviews
• Published articles of scholarly contents
  (including reviews and correspondence)
• Published facsimiles
• Unpublished dissertations (Master and Doctor)
  from universities
• Unpublished papers read at recognised conference
  or meeting

• Excluded references
• Printed editions of music and scores (except
  those of a highly scholarly nature)
• Recording and its reviews (except accompanying
  books or booklets of a highly scholarly nature)
• Books for children
• Fiction
• On-line essays posted on the internet

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Under the Bonnet (3)Table 4Additional fields
made available in each record
Field Notes
Genre Music Aspect Publication type Language used Reviews Created Modified Memo general classification of genre, i.e. vocal, keyboard, instrumental, etc. specifying Bachs works (in 3-letter abbreviation) discussed specifying the aspect of discussion in 3-letter abbreviation book, article, thesis, facsimile, music, unpublished paper, review specifying with 3-digit telephone codes 001English 049German 033Dutch... list of its reviews or authors own summary in separate publication date on which the record was first created date on which the record was last modified reserved for future use for feedback, comments, etc.
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Under the Bonnet (4)

• Search engines written in perl by Malcolm Vincent
  (formerly a QUB staff at computer services)
• Relatively simple, portable, and platform
  independent
• This set of scripts is available for other
  scholars
• Used by Dr. Paul Laird of University of Kansas
  for his International Inventory of Villancico
  Texts database (http//www.sun.rhbnc.ac.uk/Music/
  ILM/IIVT/)

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Future Plans (1) Data Collection and Editorial
Control

• Invite collaboration of other scholars
• Dynamic link to RIPM?
• Integrated into a much larger system of
  musicological project conceived in e-Science model

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Example model of an e-Science approach to Bach
Source Studies
1. Basic OMR
A
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A
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2. Advanced OMR
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Digital Image Library of Sources
3. Graphoanalysis
Middleware
4. Staff measuring
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Bachs Scribe
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F
G
H
I
J
K
Bachs sources
USER
Bach Bibliography
Bachs works
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Future Plans (2) Enhance search facilities

• Sort search results in alphabetical /
  chronological order
• Sort search results according to the relevance to
  queries
• Widen/narrow down the search

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Future Plans (3) Introduction of AI-driven
search techniques

• Table 5
• Knowledge required for measuring the significance
  of a scholarly contribution

category of knowledge about the author about the book about the article
knowledge extractable from the existing database publication record participation in NBA project publishers prestige by its history of continuity page numbers year of publication number of reviews prestige of the journal by its history of continuity page numbers
knowledge to be assigned (either manually or by vote on the internet) into database specialisation education posts held specific scholarly contributions the number of citation by others prestige of the journal by referee status specific scholarly contributions the number of citation by others