Conference cookie::notes$archive:cd_v1

1141.0. "Machine readable CD catalogue for library anyone?" by CASEE::VANDENHEUVEL (mysteries of our universe revealed) Wed Apr 06 1988 10:05

    Some people over here are trying to set up a CD library system. 
    The obvious approach is to use an existing book library application
    and store CDs as if they were books. Perhaps someone out there has
    somehting better to offer that they think is really good?
    
    I was thinking towards using a central database with some way to 
    uniquely describe as much CDs as possible, whether they are actually 
    in the library or not. 
    You can then have other files (or relations if this is to be RDB)
    that point to records in  the central file and that represent:
    	- CDs actually in libraries
    	- CDs with aquisition votes 
    	- CDs belonging to a person
    	- Borrow records

    One way to establish the list is to have everyone that enters a
    disk they want the l;ibrary to aquire or a disks that they own 
    into the central list if it is not there yet and then add a pointer
    in the appropriate list.

    An other way is to make use of an existing list for starters.
    Does anyone out there have access to a machine readable CD catalogue?
    If it appears that there is no such list in existance, then perhaps 
    we can create a significant subset of all possible CDs by combining
    the lists of all of you out there! 
    
    So, unless anyone gracefully offers a very big machine readable
    list, I suggest I simply start the process by accepting your
    kind submissions of the CD lists that you currently have. 
    One solution is to send me a mail that preferably starts of with 
    a data description (Datatrieve, cobol, basic, whatever) followed
    by the CDs in tabular format. Any other format (like "VAX-Document"
    is much more  complicated to load. 
    Pointers to world_readable files are ofcourse also accepted.
    Hell, if you want to remain nameless, I'll even accept files
    called CD... in the default DECNET account for CASEE::
    
    Good (=proven useful) record descriptions are also welcome.
    The obvious minimal fields there need to be: 
    	- Performer - Composer - Title
    Useful fields are 
    	- Label, ID, Year, Type (classic,pop,rock,jazz,blues...),
    Potential fields are
    	- Songs, Description, Performance Rating, Recording Rating.
    
    For the personal libary lists there could be fields to indicate
    whether a CD is available to borrow/sell/swap
    
    	
Thanks,
    	Hein.

    CBS Records advertises a cheap (or maybe free) disk for IBM-PCs
    that contains their entire catalog and searching software.  I suspect
    you could find ads for more general packages in the back of
    Digital Audio.
    				Steve