Irish Traditional Music Archive

Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann

Catalogues & Databases

To help users find items in the Archive collections, and the details of information that they contain, an ongoing programme of cataloguing and indexing all items on computer has been in progress since the Archive began in 1987.

The result is a unique information resource that constitutes the largest existing body of computerised information on Irish traditional music. The catalogue records uniquely respond to the nature of the materials of Irish traditional music and the interests of the users of the materials, but are based on generalist international bibliographic systems such as Universal Decimal Classification, the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (second edition), Marc 21, etc.

All commercial sound recordings (78s, SPs, EPs, LPs, cassettes and CDs), all books and serials, and also the Archive's photographic collection, have been catalogued in detail to date, as well as commercial videos and DVDs and a large selection of non-commercial audio and video material in less detail. These items can now be searched fully by visitors using the computers provided in the public rooms.

A thematic index on file cards to over 5,000 traditional Irish dance tunes is also available (but is currently undergoing conservation). For details see Breandán Breathnach, 'Between the Jigs and Reels' in Ceol (vol. 5, no 2, March 1982).

New Catalogue Project
An extensive ongoing project of making the Archive catalogues and databases remotely available through the Internet has been in progress since 2007, with the aid of project funding from the Arts Council/ An Chomhairle Ealaíon. Existing records are being converted to web-compatible formats, re-edited and standardised etc., and began to become available on the Archive website from 29 July 2008. Brief queries about catalogued items continue to be answered by phone.

Phase 1
The first priority of the project is to make basic bibliographical, discographical and visual information available to searchers, and thus to answer the elementary question about printed, sound recorded and visual material: 'Is it in the Irish Traditional Music Archive?' All items appearing on this online catalogue are available for consultation within the Archive.

The first tranche of catalogue records was made available on 29 July 2008, the 21st anniversary of the foundation of the Archive. The next tranches are being made available in two-monthly increments.

Phase 2
More extensive information (such as the full contents listings of books, sound recordings, images, etc.) is already available online locally to visitors to the Archive, and will be made available remotely as resources can be directed to the project.

Cards from the Breandán Breathnach Melodic Index