When I was teaching high school, we subscribed to the Charms system (www.charmsmusic.com), and I absolutely loved it.  I highly recommend checking them out.

 

Tom Tropp

Northwestern University

 Hi - I've written a web-based sheet-music cataloguing system which is currently used by a number of groups around the world. The system is designed to be entirely flexible so you can use for sheet music for any type of ensemble.  So far it's mostly being used by bands and orchestras, but it would work fine with choral parts too. The largest user is an Area Music Authority in Britain - they have over 2,500 pieces listed.  

 

I'm happy to offer this service free of charge to any choir that would like to make use of it and offer me some advice on how it might be best configured for use by choirs too (my musical background is as band / orchestral player).  If anyone's interested, please contact me through the email link on the website :  www.musiclibrarian.net    You can also download the userguide from there if you want to find out more details about the system.

 

Chris,

Can you help me?  I am taking database 110 and need to do a project on church choir music database.  It is causing me a lot of stress because I don't know how to do it.  Can you provide me with some information about your database - entities, relationships, etc.  My database doesn't have to be a large one, but it is specific to church choir music.

 

Many thanks for any help.

 

Regards,

Lyn Merritt

North Carolina

lmerritt123(a)aol.com

I've had great success with using Google Docs to create a spreadsheet.  It does what I need it to do, is searchable and sortable, it doesn't take up space on my hard drive (since it's in "the cloud"), and I can share it with anyone I'd want to.  And best of all... it's FREE!

Tina,

 

Musica International ( http://www.musicanet.org ) has exactly this feature. It offers you now to own one or several private fields in which you can manage the holdings of you own library.

Have a look there, and do a search in the database (for instance Eric Whitacre, Cloudburst). You will see, in the detailed display, the mention of locations of the score, somewhere in the world. The display of locations is either public (those that you see) or private (that only those who have access see).

 

The enormous advantage of this system is that a cataloguing of more than 160,000 scores is already done, in addition to their very comprehensive way, that gives all the power to the Musica International project. One has just to add, on-line, the location of the score (and eventually other info like the number of copies) into his private field(s).

 

The system works cooperatively, in a sense that if a score of yours is not referenced yet, you describe it in a record if which everybody in the world will then benefit from. You use the referencing of everybody, and everybody benefits from your stone in building the woldwide database.

 

For more about this, read http://www.musicanet.org/en/musica_v6_lib.php   and contact us office(a)musicanet.org

Jean

Years ago I put the entire music library of the school I was at on Filemker Pro. It was very flexible and I was able to set it up for detailed info, simple line info for a directory, and I designed box labels which I printed out on full sheet sticker paper, cut apart and put on my music storagae boxes. Four years ago I moved from that school to a new school. I am now, again, cateloguing my music library. Only this time, I don't have access to using Filemaker Pro. I do, however, have Microsoft OfficeSuite which is standard for our district. I am using EXCEL for my library this time around. I find that it works just as well. And I can move the files easily between my school computer and my personal laptop which for me is a necessity. The OfficeSuite also includes ACCESS which is another alternative for cateloguing and is one I can transfer to later, if I decide to. 

 

Both the FileMaker Pro at my other school, and now with EXCEL, I  can search, I make box labels, (and now also folder labels for a verticle file for pieces with less than 10 copies) and I make a data disc of the"Current" file to attach with my yearly inventory. I can limit the number of fields for print out by "hiding" info and that way create a usable index printout.

 

If you are interested, I can send you a copy of my EXCEL file and you can see how it is set up. It is really flexible in that I can add info categories as needed. Just a thought. 

 

Debbie

Tina,

 

A low budget method (I used before I learned about some of the "professional'y made" programs) is to simply create a spreadsheet in Excel

( or some other program as is in Microsoft Works or Corel, or even Open Office)

 

You can name all the columns as you need (title, composer, publisher, voicing, etc.)

 

It takes a while to enter all the info, but once it's done, it's easy to search, sort, etc,

 

Additionally, I use Dropbox as online storage. (dropbox.com) It's free. And, you can download it on as many computers as you work on, then when anything is changed/updated, when you boot up any of the other computers, dropbox automatically updates. For example, I have Dropbox on my home and office desktops, and both laptops for school. You can also access it via the dropbox website from anywhere you can get internet.

 

Another option is to reate your own database in Microsoft Access or the Corel, etc., equivalent.

 

Good luck

Ed Harkless

Like Mr. Harkless mentioned, an Excel spreadsheet works just as good as any database.  I am working on cataloging our Cathedral choir library in Excel and it's simple.

I use google docs, because I can share it, and access it anywhere.  I back up the database on an excel file on the district server.