Columbia Records Data Licensed
The American Discography Project (ADP) has reached an agreement with ABC-CLIO, publisher of The Columbia Master Book Discography, to license the data compiled by Brian Rust and Tim Brooks on domestic Columbia recordings made before 1934. The monumental four-volume work is a landmark of discographic publishing and will be edited to meet the content and format standards of the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings (EDVR).
The Columbia Master Book Discography by Tim Brooks and Brian Rust (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999) is the most comprehensive discography of Columbia Records from the earliest recordings in 1900 until their sale to ARC in 1934.
The printed books have been keyed into a database format by a firm specializing in conversion of books to electronic format. The data has been imported into the ADP master database and is being edited by UCSB’s team of editors.
The integration of print discographies into EDVR, UCSB's comprehensive online database of 78rpm recordings, will enable researchers for the first time to see an integrated view of the early history of the American recording industry, allowing searches of all recordings made on a particular date, by a particular artist or composer, by particular instrumental forces, in a certain language, or marketed to certain ethnic groups—regardless of which record label made the recording.
Columbia Master Book data will debut in the ADP's new Discography of American Historical Recordings in the Fall of 2013.