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Browse

Browsing the collections

Searching for items in a collection is ideal when you know what you're looking for. However sometimes you want to be able to page your way through a collection, seeing what's there and (hopefully) stumbling on interesting and new materials that you haven't seen before or didn't know existed. Our browsing system allows you to do this; you can start at the beginning of a collection and work your way through item by item, or just dip in the middle and see what you find.

The Full English Collections

Full English logo

The Full English Collections are organised in an archive hierarchy; this means that each collection typically has a dozen or so 'top level' records which you see when you first look at the collection. You can then open these records to see the records that they contain, and then open these new records and so on. Usually you can go down into the archive three or four levels. Clicking on the title of the record brings up the full record on the right of the screen, and if the record has any scans or images you can click on them to view them.

Happy exploring!

The Cecil Sharp Diaries

Cecil Sharp on a bike

Cecil Sharp was England's most prolific folk music and dance collector in what is now widely known as the First Folk Revival. We have digitised and transcribed his diaries from 1915 to 1918, and they give a detailed insight to Sharp's travels in the Appalachian mountains.

The digitisations are now available on this site and are fully searchable.

Historic Dance and Tune Books

The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library (VWML) contains many rare and unique items of literature, both printed and in manuscript. Focussing here on dance and dance music, in this Gallery we are making available for browsing some of these treasures which have previously only been available for viewing at Cecil Sharp House.

The gallery is now available on this site.