Correct Metadata is Hard: a Lesson from the Great 78 Project

We have been digitizing about 8,000 78rpm record sides each month and now have 122,000 of them done. These have been posted on the net and over a million people have explored them. We have been digitizing, typing the information on the label, and linking to other information like discographies, databases, reviews and the like.

Volunteers, users, and internal QA checkers have pointing out typos, and we decided to go back over a couple of month’s metadata and found problems. And then we contracted with professional proofreaders and they found even more (2% of the records at this point had something to point out, some are matters of opinion or aesthetics, some lead to corrections).

We are going to pay the professional proofreaders to correct the 5 most important fields for all 122,000 records, but can use more help. We are pointing these out here in hopes to interest volunteer proofreaders and to share our experience in continually improving our collections.

Here are some of the issues with the primary performer field: before-the-after that we have now corrected from the June 2019 transfers (before | after) that we hope to upload in the next couple of weeks:

Jose Melis And His Latin American Ensemble | Jose Melis And His-Latin American Ensemble
Columbia-Orchestra | Columbia-Orchester
S. Formichi and T. Chelotti | S. Formichi e T. Chelotti
Dennis Daye and The Rhythmaires | Dennis Day and The Rhythmaires
Harry James and His Orchestra | Harry James and His Orch.
Charles Hart & Elliot Shaw | Charles Hart & Elliott Shaw
Peerless Quartet | Peerless Quartette

Some of the title corrections:

O Vino Fa ‘Papla (Wine Makes You Talk) | ‘O Vino Fa ‘Papla (Wine Makes You Talk)
Masked Ball Salaction | Masked Ball Selection
Moonlight and Roses (Brings Mem’ries Of You) | Moonlight and Roses (Bring Mem’ries Of You)
Que Bonita Eres Tu (You Are Beutiful) | Que Bonita Eres Tu (You Are Beautiful)
Buttered Roll | “Buttered Roll”
Paradise | “Paradise”
Got a Right to Cry | “Got a Right to Cry”
Blue Moods | “Blue Moods”
Auf Wiederseh’n Sweerheart | Auf Wiederseh’n Sweetheart
George M. Cohan Medley – Part 1 | George M. Cohan Medley – Part 2
Dewildered | Bewildered
Lolita (Seranata) | Lolita (Serenata)
Got a Right to Cry | “Got a Right to Cry” Joe Liggins and His Honeydrippers
Blue Moods | “Blue Moods”
Body and Soul | “Body and Soul”
Mais Qui Est-Ce | Mais Qui Est-Ce?
Wail Till the Sun Shines Nellie Blues | Wait Till the Sun Shines Nellie Blues
Que Te Pasa Joe (What Happens Joe) | Que Te Pasa Jose (What Happens Joe)
SAMSON AND DELILAH Softly Awakens My Heart | SAMSON AND DELILAH Softly Awakes My Heart
I’m Gonna COO, COO, COO | (I’m Gonna) COO, COO, COO


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