[Bell Historians] Musical scales, bell register

[Bickerton, Roderic K (SELEX) (UK)]

 5 years ago I would have whole heartedly agreed, but Campanophile seems
to work reasonably well.

With sensible control of people who can log on, all data dated and
attributed, no ability for anyone to delete ore amend anything except
there own entries, I cannot see any danger.
Any data base will contain error, which needs to be addressed.
I cannot think of any reason why each bell should not have an open
record which could in some circumstances contain historic notes sound
and image as well as a historic record of its use.

Clearly that sort of level of detail cannot be the preserve of one man. 

I work with a company data base that holds all the information the
company generates undertaking design of black boxes for aircraft.
That has expanded from a totally structured set up with only approved
data.
The structured and controlled information is now even more rigorously
controlled BUT it is also now possible to add virtually anything, fully
linked into the structured data, but clearly separated from official
content.
In out case casual information has tight access control, something un
necessary on a bells data base.

Dater bases are expanding from a computerised version of a concise
record card to a "keep everything" storage facility, only limited by
available memory.
There are not enough bells in the world for this to be a problem, unless
we need moving picture images, and even I cant think of reason for
wanting that!



I find your argument unconvincing. A quick look at the amount of
updating work John Baldwin has to do at the moment would show just how
much time he has to spend on Dove as it is. Adding yet more data to this
degree would mean that this would grown enormously. Splitting the job up
will add in extra chances of inaccuracies and therefore the questions
need to be asked, "Will John have the time", and, more importantly,
"Will the collection and hosting of this information be cost effective
in terms of both time and money?"

You are getting towards the stage of having a database that will need
some paid for management, at a significant cost. Who will gain the
benefit from it? A proportion of this list and a few others, perhaps. 
Would they be prepared to pay for the data at a rate that covers the
cost of maintaining it? I doubt it very much. I remember someone at a
meeting, Andrew Wilby IIRC, remarking on the cost of maintaining the
National Organ Register that has a similarly large amount of detail. It
was several thousand pounds per year.

Mike

Mike



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