Web resources

Bodleian Broadside Ballads

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The good news: https://bibsoc.org.uk/councils-choice-for-november-2025/?fbclid=IwY2xjawN1UKFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETA4UnlNa09mVjVTNEg0eWFsAR4J3ihpab-Fz0hsO4uRq-4RXN8pwp2on-1vt9emqILTZJwPbuF-ZJroEmyvjg_aem_1xct88nzNOuse2GC0oIkLw Steve Roud has come up with some sound advice on using the new version: The latest news on the Bodleian Broadsides site is very encouraging, but this is only the first step. As you will see, the catalogue is accessible, but the images are not yet there. The old ones were … Read more

Bodleian Broadside Ballads back on-line soon!

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Steve had this communication from Dr Alexandra Franklin of the Bodleian Libraries, with an indication that the resource will be back on-line, in improved form, by the end of this month. At the end of 2024, the Bodleian Libraries reviewed a number of specialist digital resources including the Bodleian Broadside Ballads online database. As a … Read more

Yet more broadsides

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Steve Roud recently discovered a rather wonderful collection called ‘An Album of Street Literature’ which is a selection of early Nineteenth Century broadsides from the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. You will find it on the Internet Archive – HERE. It isn’t indexed (though Steve is taking care of that) but the images … Read more

Website of the Month – Mid September

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Some of you may have had the pleasure of meeting the American folklorist, collector and record producer, Kenneth Goldstein, as I did many years ago. While wandering the virtual world the other day I came across his collection of English, Irish and Scottish broadside ballads, which has been made available on the University of Missouri … Read more

Website(s) of the Month

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Amongst all the recent excitement I haven’t nominated a ‘Website of the Month’ for some weeks – so I’ll mention two.John Baxter, who has been assisting us technically with the Zoom meetings, has an excellent website which he describes as ‘a work in progress’, but is actually very useful. It is called Folk Song and Music … Read more

Website of the Month – February 2020

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Another TSF member, David Sutcliffe, has also been busy and has just launched his website,  www.cecilsharpspeople.org.uk. You can also download David’s press release here, which will tell you how it came into being – go HERE. The site is about the people Sharp met and you can search to obtain a brief biography, often accompanied by a … Read more

Website of the Month – December 2019

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Carrie Grover was born in Nova Scotia in 1879, surrounded by traditional song. When she was 14 the family moved to Maine, but Carrie continued to sing the songs of her birthplace until she died in 1959. A book of her songs, A Heritage of Songs, was published in the early 1950s and she left an … Read more

How Folk Songs Should Be Sung

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If you are interested in what the Critics Group got up to then you should listen to this programme, introduced by Martin Carthy, which uses Charles Parker’s recordings of their meetings to reveal something of what went on. You can find it on the BBC ‘Sounds’ website for at least the next year.Go HERE.  

Opie Archive of Children’s Lore onlineI

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ona and Peter Opie were seminal figures in the British folklore scene for many years, but are mostly remembered for their work on children’s folklore from the 1950s to the 1990s. Their huge manuscript collection is held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and a project has been underway to digitise the materials, catalogue them, … Read more

Whalsay’s Heritage of Songs

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A wonderful website that has been put together by Peter Cooke. Whalsay is a small island, lying a few miles East of the Shetland mainland and has a distinct culture. There songs from a number of singers with both texts and recordings and photos and details of the singers. A very enjoyable site to browse … Read more