Internet Resources: traditional folk song

An increasing number of books, journals and other publications relating to the folk arts are becoming available online, either in facsimile, as plain text, or coded as html pages. The major contributors are the well-funded American institutions, and these are the resources which are likely to stay put; but a significant amount of material is also provided by British universities and smaller, independent sites such as this one.

There are also a large number of websites which include collections of songs. These range from organised archive collections of field recordings, broadsides and sheet music to more fluid sites containing material copied from published or recorded sources, and reproduced in various formats, including sheet music, recordings and texts: in some cases with tunes provided in abc or midi formats. Some of these are of a high standard, while others are full of unattributed material, misinformation and errors, and should be used with caution, or avoided altogether.

Although our main emphasis is on English language material, we also include resources relating to traditions in other languages; at least where we can tell what they are. There is plenty of material still to be added; this will appear as time permits.