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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) about this site:
      Please note that some information written here since 1995 may no longer apply. Obsolete information will be deleted from this page as necessary.

Q0.0) How do you pronounce FolkLib? - new 12-08-2011

      A0.0) See folklib pronunciation

Q0.1) I just got a message from "...@folklib.net" . Did you send it? - new 4-17-2010

      A0.1) Absolutely NOT! My official and ONLY music related E-Mail address has been  henkle@pobox.com  since 1997. When I got this domain in April 2000, I disabled any possiblility of mailing anything with my domain name in it. Therefore, if you EVER receive any E-Mail from any address with my domain name in it, it is guaranteed to be SPAM. DO NOT OPEN IT! Immediately delete it! It is not from me!
      For example, ANY MESSAGE YOU RECEIVE FROM "info@folklib.net" IS SPAM!
      Furthermore, all E-Mail addresses with "@folklib.net" in them are invalid. Filters have been installed so that any message of any kind sent to such an address will be automatically deleted. I will never even see it, much less read it.

Q0.2) 8-24-2010: Speaking of SPAM, any message sent to me with the subject "Website Design Service" will be marked as SPAM and will not be read, unless the subject also includes the word "FREE". I am retired and have no money to pay anybody anything to help improve my site. What you see is what you get, permanently.

Q01) How long has this site been on-line?
Q02) What is the purpose of this site?
Q03) What types of musicians are NOT listed at this site? - new 11-22-1998
Q04) How do I move around this site, i.e. how is it designed? - new 11-22-1998
Q05) Why so few graphics, and no sound or video files? (updated 2-10-2011)
Q08) How often is this site updated? - new 11-22-1998
Q08a) Can you book my act, create a Home Page for it, or write a review of my latest album? - new 12-20-1998
Q09) When is the best time to submit an update or request a link to my site? - new 11-22-1998
Q10) Do you install reciprocal links? - new 11-22-1998
Q11) Why should I check the What's New? page weekly? - new 11-22-1998
Q12) Where do I find the lyrics (tablature or chords) for "song title"? - new 11-22-1998
Q13) How do I contact "artist/group name"? - new 11-22-1998
Q14) Why do you have so many broken Itinerary ("Itin") links? - new 11-29-1998
Q14a) Why have you deleted all links to individual artist/group itineraries on their personal Web pages? - new 12-31-2000
Q15) Why do you have so many links listed as "Author ?" ? - new 12-13-1998
Q15a) I maintain the musician's name Web site. Would you please remove my name from your link and replace it with the musician's name or the site name? - new 05-14-2000
Q16) What do the dates in the copyright notice at the bottom of every page signify? - new 05-30-1999
Q17) Why do you have such strange, cryptic filenames like ander_muriel.shtml and birth2days.shtml? - new 10-10-1999
Q18) What is your Cookie policy? - new 01-16-2000
Q19) Why did you link to my site as I requested, but you didn't reply to my request? - new 01-30-2000
Q20) Do you link to sites that require everyone to login to see their site? - expanded 07-16-2000 (this was part of Q04)
Q21) What information do you gather about individual visitors to your site? (i.e., Privacy Policy / Privacy Statement) - new 07-16-2000
Q22) What is your bootleg policy? - new 05-12-2001
Q23) How do you define "recording artist"? - new 07-29-2001
Q24) How do you define a "compilation album" vs. a "collection album"? - new 10-28-2001
Q25) In your discographies, why do you mention, "track times are not listed"? - new 10-27-2002
Q26) How many musical artists and groups do you list on your entire Web site? - new 05-12-2005
Q27) What kind of "Artists" are listed on your Web site? - new 01-02-2007
Q28) Why don't you link to MySpace/Facebook pages? - new 02-02-2007
Q29) How much recording session data do you include in your discographies? - new 01-30-2008
Q30) How do you handle obsolete pages and pages that for some reason have to be moved to a different location? - new 10-09-2008
Q31) How many ways do you respond to attempted correspondence with visitors to your site? - new 09-03-2009
Q32) What does "cannot stitch" mean? - new 03-30-2011
Q33) What is your Dead Link Policy? - new 09-12-2011
Q34) What are your plans for the huge Folk Music Bibliography page? - new 02-17-2014

Q01) How long has this site been on-line? - top / bottom of page
      A01) The task of organizing my many Folk Music bookmarks into Web pages began on 1-23-1995. The Index was put on-line on 11-25-1995. It's original title, "The FolkBook Index", was changed to "FolkLib Index: A Library of Folk Music Links" on 03-08-1998. Note: the "Lib" in "FolkLib" is pronounced with a long "i", as in "Library".   See folklib pronunciation .

Q02) What is the purpose of this site? - top / bottom of page
      A02) This is an index site for Folk Music and other acoustic music related information on the World Wide Web. This site's primary purpose is to make it as easy and fast as possible for you to find specific information about an individual acoustic artist or group. It links to other sites and organizes what is on the Web to make information easier to find. Additionally, you will find detailed information here on the Birthdays/Bibliography, Bibliography and Discography pages, some of the information on individual Artist Index Files, and the Wisconsin Bluegrass Bands database. Most of this is original content which cannot be found elsewhere on the Web.

Q03) What types of musicians are NOT listed at this site? - top / bottom of page
      A03) This is a Folk and other Acoustic Music related site. Except for Wisconsin non-folk musicians, and some fingerstyle acoustic guitarists and harpers/harpists, you will probably not find other individual artists/groups listed from such musical fields as classical, opera, jazz, rap, reggae, punk, heavy metal, or most pop/rock/country. Some non-acoustic exceptions you will find here are, a few country artists I like, the links to other sites which have lists of Classical, Country, and Jazz artists/groups, a few top-40 musicians I like (mostly from prior to the late 1970's when I stopped listening to anything except Wisconsin Public Radio [WPNE-FM]), and a number of my favorite 1950's and 1960's comedians.

Q04) How do I move around this site, i.e. how is it designed? - top / bottom of page
      A04) At the top of every page are internal links to different sections contained on the current page, and sometimes to related pages at this site. At the bottom of every page are links which will return you to the home page and/or to other page(s) at this site that linked you to the current page. There is also a Wisconsin Music Site Map page with links to all Wisconsin related musical information at this site. You can always use the BACK function of your browser to return to the previous page. No link here will EVER open a second browser window disabling your BACK function.
      Also, although there are a few exceptions, most of the links that appear in bold are links to other people's sites. Most non-bolded links go to other locations at this site. There are deliberately EXTENSIVE! cross-reference links throughout the entire site to other related information here. As an example, there are over 15,000 "name=" HTML anchor tags on these pages that can be linked to, by anybody, from anywhere (not including the TOP and BOT anchors that I would gratefully appreciate other sites NOT use).
      For compatibility with every browser that ever existed, there are no frames, image maps, backgrounds, counters, java, JavaScript, popups, cookies, sounds, annoying scrolling text, animations or blinking text, or links to specific browser downloads (ALL browsers are welcome). This site is specifically designed to be VERY Lynx and other text browser friendly.
      If you have a problem accessing anything here with your browser, please write and I will be glad to work with you to make whatever changes to my site that may be necessary for your browser and the PC/Macintosh/UNIX platform you are using.
      Except for extremely special circumstances, I do not link to "splash" pages, i.e. those which usually say, "this is my site, press here to enter". Most splash pages contain no musical information of any kind, so I only link to the page that they link to, or to the first page which I think contains musical information. Also, most splash pages contain only a graphic, with almost never any readable text, which, whether deliberately or not, discriminates against the blind and disabled.
      Finally, as noted by the RSACi/ICRA/FOSI (Family Online Safety Institute) graphics on the bottom of the home page, this is a family domain designed to be used by all ages. Therefore, you DO NOT need an "AgeCheck ID" to access anything here. [personal note: I have never had an "AgeCheck ID" and I hope neither have any of my readers.] If you ever find a link here that mistakenly goes directly to a page with pornographic content or unacceptable language (as defined by anyone, like myself, who grew up in the 1950s), please write and it will be deleted immediately.
      06-10-2004 update: Note to those who link to specific artist entries in the Index: Not all anchor tags here are set in stone, that is, up until the book goes to press.** Until then, they can, and will, change as necessary in order to keep them unique and unambiguous. For example, I found I had two Wisconsin artists, Steve Miller and Stewart Miller and I was using the same anchor for both, "#Miller,S". To avoid confusion, I changed them to "#Miller,Sv" and "#Miller,Sw", and changed all internal links to their respective entries. Linking to "#Miller,S" for either one will no longer work. If the link you have goes to the right page, but not the right location, use your browser's "Show HTML Source" function to see if the anchor has changed since you created your link or personal bookmark. Also, as explained on the Wisconsin Artists page, some artists may move to a different page for various reasons: 1) If I find out a national artist once lived in Wisconsin, their entry will be moved to one of the Wisconsin pages and a permanent link will be added to the new location, or 2) their entry was moved from the "Wisconsin Artists" page to another page by genre. In this case, as a courtesy, a link to the new Wisconsin location will remain at the old Wisconsin location for about six months to a year so you can update your link. After that, the link will be removed and you will need to either search for the artist, or find them on the Wisconsin Artist/Group Master Name Index page. A page, once created here, will (almost) never be deleted. If everything on a page is moved to another page, all internal links to the old page will be removed from this site, but the old page will remain permanently where it was with a link to the new location. Since 1995, only two pages have been completely deleted, and it was done under extremely unusual circumstances. Both cases involved lawyers or the threat of same. **       Please note that once URL's with anchor tags for Wisconsin Pop and Rock musicians are published in the book, those anchors will never, EVER! be changed again. Every URL published in the book will remain valid as long as it is possible for me to maintain this Web site. That will be my promise to all readers of the book.

Q05) Why so few graphics, and no sound or video files? - top / bottom of page
      A05) Graphics increase page loading time and defeat my purpose of getting you from here to there as fast as possible. Any page at this domain whose primary purpose is to link you to someplace else, has no graphics to slow down your getting there. However, graphics of many kinds now appear on many pages. There are scans of book covers, 45 & LP record labels and jackets, festival programs, concert posters, and any other item scanned for pages whose primary purpose is to convey music related information which, in most cases, does not exist anywhere else on the Web.
      However, there are NO sound files and NO video files. Because of possible copyright restrictions on any given sound and video file, none will EVER be installed on this domain.
      Additionally, also because of potential copyright problems, I have never downloaded any sound or video file of any kind and I never will. The only sound files on my hard drive were imported by iTunes from CD's I own. None of these files will ever be placed on-line. Also, sound files, whether for an indiviual song or an entire album, will NOT be listed in any discography I create. It is impossible for me to describe a sound file in a way that its existemce and current on-line location will be guaranteed to be valid 100 years from now. Any such file is by definition ephemeral and most probably will not exist in the far future for anyone to enjoy.

Q08) How often is this site updated? - top / bottom of page
      A08) The FolkLib Index is a personal, spare-time project unrelated to my day job as a Computer Consultant/Programmer at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Updates are made only on weekends and they are only installed once a week late Sunday night.
      08-31-2002 update: I retired yesterday. Important corrections may get installed during the week now, but the complete upload of all changes made during the past week and re-indexing for searching purposes, will continue to be done only once a week.
      04-22-2004 update: As explained in What's New?, full site updates will be done every four weeks instead of weekly until the book goes to press sometime late in 2006.
      08-24-2010 update: This has been in affect since I realized the book may never happen, a couple of years or so ... updates are installed usually on a daily basis whenever there is something new to add or an update to be made. Links to newly installed pages appear at the top of the What's New? page. Otherwise, other specific updates made are not announced anywhere. Daily updates can be anything from a brand new group and all its members I just learned about, to just a simple correction of a spelling mistake.

Q08a) Can you book my act, create a Home Page for it, or write a review of my latest album?
      A08a) See my above UW Oshkosh job description, A08). I do not play an instrument, and I am not an agent, or a manager, or a record company, or a reviewer, or any other job connected with the music industry. Strictly in my spare-time, I create discographies, research all existing Wisconsin Bluegrass Bands, and perform a Librarian's type of service by indexing Folk Music on the Web, no more and no less.
      08-31-2002 update: I have no plans to do any of the above music related jobs in retirement. Writing new discographies and a "Wisconsin Discography" book, creating other new on-line projects, and maintaining the Index will remain my primary tasks for the foreseeable future.

Q09) When is the best time to submit an update or request a link to my site? - top / bottom of page
(aka "Submit Site" / "Submit My Site" instructions)
      A09) If the subject of your musical page reasonably fits somewhere in this Index, I will be glad to add a link to your page. Now that I am retired, your update requests can be submitted at any time, but the updates will not get installed until the date noted as "Next site update" on the What's New? page. Extremely important! Make sure when you request a link to a musician's home page, you include who maintains the site. If you do not include a name, and I can't find the Webmaster's name on the pages, your link will be listed as Author ? (Webmaster unknown).

Q10) Do you install reciprocal links? - top / bottom of page
      A10) Yes! At the bottom of most pages is a "Known links to this page:" section which lists reciprocal links for other people's pages which link to that page. If you link to one of my pages that has a "LINKS" section, please write and send me the URL address of the page where you put the link, and I will add a reciprocal Thank You link back to you.

Q11) Why should I check the What's New? page weekly? - top / bottom of page
      A11) Every new page added to the Index is listed there in bold faced type. For those who also maintain links to other musical sites, when major musical sites go off-line, or change their URL address or site name, the before and after URL's are listed there. If you can't find the new location of broken links on your pages, use your browser's FIND function to search for the old URL there. You just might find it. Also, if there is a problem and I am unable to upload any updates at all on a particular weekend, if possible, a notice will be included on the What's New? page. When What's New? changes, you will know all other updates for the week have been installed. The site will be re-indexed for searching purposes within 15 minutes after What's New? changes.

Q12) Where do I find the lyrics (tablature or chords) for "song title"? - top / bottom of page
      By far, the most frequently asked question!
      A12) There are NO lyrics at this site. I do not know the location of any particular lyric, tablature or chord page. Links to every site (at least every one that I know about) that contains lyrics, tablature and/or chords for songs by more than one musician, can be found on my List of Lyrics Sites page. For songs by an individual artist or group, also try their Home Page. If they are an acoustic artist and I know where their Home Page is, there will be a link under their name ("lastname, firstname" or "group name") in the Index. Additionally, some search engines allow a phrase search, like: "wreck of the edmund fitzgerald" (be sure to include the quotation marks) which may find the song title you need. Good luck in your searching.

Q13) How do I contact "artist/group name"? - top / bottom of page
      A13) Try their Home Page. If they are an acoustic artist and I know where their Home Page is, there will be a link under their name ("lastname, firstname" or "group name") in the Index. If they have an individual Artist Index File, and I know what their address is, it is included on their page. Try contacting their record label, or their booking agent or management firm if it is listed. Many of the artists/groups listed here have bibliography entries on the page where I attempt to index write-ups about them found in a number of paper books. Some books include contact information, however, most do not. If none of the above is helpful, I do not know how to contact them.

Q14) Why do you have so many broken Itinerary ("Itin") links? - top / bottom of page
      A14) At one time since January 1995, there was actual concert information linked to for that artist/group at that Dirty Linen or Musi-Cal Itinerary site. As soon as someone submits a current concert schedule to that site, the link will work again. However, if you know that the artist is deceased or permanently stopped performing, or the group has disbanded, or you are ABSOLUTELY! sure that NOBODY will EVER again submit concerts for an individual touring artist/group to one of these two itinerary sites because they are trying to keep their concerts a secret from those who do not know their Web site exists, or who are not on their mailing list, please write and I will delete that link, and possibly every other link for that artist/group.

Q14a) Why have you deleted all links to individual artist/group itineraries on their personal Web pages? - top / bottom of page
      A14a) You might call this a one-man personal crusade to try to convince artists and groups or their booking agents, management firms, record labels, etc., that they need to think globally about promoting themselves or their clients. Yes, by all means, put your concert/gig schedule on your Web page, but don't believe for a second that every fan will see it there. You must realize that for every fan who knows about the itinerary on your Web page, there are probably a thousand others that would love to attend your concert and shower you with money by buying all your recordings at the show, but they have no clue you have a Web page, much less, an itinerary on it. Sadly, the late great itinerary sites Dirty Linen and Musi-Cal are gone forever, so there is no venue site I know of that features and promotes acoustic music. All the sites listed on my Itineraries/Venues are for Pop/Rock musicians exclusively. Acoustic artists are not wanted.

Q15) Why do you have so many links listed as "Author ?" ? - top / bottom of page
      A15) Every off-site link here is labeled with either the name of the musical organization, company, etc. or the name of the individual who maintains the site linked to. With the rare exception of people like Peter Berryman and Gerri Gribi, most musicians do not have the time or interest in becoming Web page designers. A small percentage of artist pages are created by record labels or booking agents, management/promotions firms like Folk Era. The vast majority of artist/group pages are created by a fan, personal friend or family member of the artist. I try hard to discover the names of the individuals who create and maintain an artist's page and give them full credit whenever I can. I feel they really deserve this recognition for all their (in most cases, unpaid) work. Please write if you know the real name of the Web page maintainer to replace my "Author ?" (Author unknown) designation. Note also that I never use the word "Official" for any artist's or group's page. I leave it up to the Web page author(s) to convey that information.
      Q15a) I maintain the musician's name Web site. Would you please remove my name from your link and replace it with the musician's name or the site name?
      The second most frequently asked question, after Where do I find lyrics?
      A15a) Yes, and no. Yes, I will remove your name, but, no, I will not replace it with with something other than the Webmaster's name. As stated directly above, A15), my Home Page links for specific musicians are listed by the individual(s) or musical organizations or companies (labels, booking agents, etc.) who maintain the artist's Web site, and not by the artist's name, unless I know they maintain their own site without assistance. I do not like listing links by "Home Page #1", "#2", etc. for every site about an artist there is on the Web, plus I believe Webmasters (especially the unpaid ones) deserve every bit of credit and thanks they can get for their Web page maintenance skills. You told me musician's name does not maintain their site, you do. If you do not wish to have your name appear in public for any reason whatsoever, there are two options on how my link to your Web page will be named: "Author ?" or "anonymous". Which do you prefer?

Q16) What do the dates in the copyright notice at the bottom of every page signify? - top / bottom of page
      A16) "Copyright © 1991-2017" - The first date is the year the file or Web page was first put on-line, and the second date is the current year, or the year the page was last updated.
      Plagiarism Notice: If you see the copyrighted information on this site installed on a different website, it was copied/stolen without permission. A link to the unauthorized copy will remain on the stolen page until my copyrighted information is removed or proper attribution to my personal research is installed.

Q17) Why do you have such strange, cryptic filenames like ander_muriel.shtml and birth2days.shtml ? - top / bottom of page
      A17) When I started creating the Index on 1-23-1995, long filenames did not exist except under VAX/VMS, where the files were and still are maintained, and under UNIX, where they are installed. All files downloaded to DOS or Novell were truncated to the "12345678.123" filename format. Filenames here have been, and will continue to be, assigned so that if I, or anyone else, downloads all 139 + Index Web page files into the same DOS directory, no file will be overwritten by any other file. In order to do this, every filename must be unique within the first 8 characters, hence the strange filenames.

Q18) What is your Cookie policy? - top / bottom of page
      A18) Personally, I feel that cookies are a serious, if not criminal, invasion of privacy. By definition, cookies are personal information about all site visitors, that is, every visitor, including children. In the United States of America, it is a crime to collect personal information about children on the Web. I do not use cookies at this site. I also do not link to any site that deliberately blocks access to everyone who chooses for security reasons not to accept cookies, as well to everyone who uses a browser that is not capable of accepting cookies. [02-13-2000 update] Cookies can also be dangerous to your computer's health. Read about "poisoned cookies" and malicious JavaScript code on the "http://www.ciac.org/ciac/" (the Computer Incident Advisory Capability [CIAC], "Keeping DOE Secure" warning page for the U.S. Department of Energy), "http://www.ciac.org/ciac/bulletins/k-021.shtml" (K-021: Malicious HTML Tags Vulnerability) ... sorry, the entire site is gone.

Q19) Why did you link to my site as I requested, but you didn't reply to my request? - top / bottom of page
      A19) I try to reply to every request I get when I add the link, however, MANY times my replies bounce back to me because the request was sent from an invalid address. I really don't have time to track down valid addresses for anyone. In some cases I have a question about your link, but with no possibility of getting my question answered, I may have to add your link in a way or in a location you don't like, or in rare cases, when I must get a reply before I will add the link, you won't get the link. To avoid these problems with your link request, please ALWAYS write me from a valid address. If you have anti-spam characters in your return address, please don't use that address for a request because I won't be able to reply.

Q20) Do you link to sites that require everyone to login to see their site? - top / bottom of page
      A20) No. Login pages usually contain no musical information, so I do not link to them. The primary reason I don't, is because these sites require you to enter some type of personal information (your E-Mail address and usually much more) as part of setting up a login account. As it is illegal and immoral to collect data about children, by definition, children are not allowed access to these sites. I don't link to any site that is not viewable by everyone, children and adults.
      5-23-2009 update: The same logic applies to any site that requires a fee or paid subscription in order to gain access. K-12 children are forbidden to get personal accounts on these sites, so I never link to paid sites, no matter what their content.

Q21) What information do you gather about individual visitors to your site? (i.e., Privacy Policy / Privacy Statement) - top / bottom of page
      A21) Nothing, nada, zero, null, nil, never have, and never will ! Therefore, as I never, ever gather any information about any visitor to my domain, there is no need for a Privacy Policy or a Privacy Statement here. I have no personal information of any kind to share with anybody, anywhere, at any time. Related: see my Cookie Policy.
      If you had fun reading this paragraph, you can read it again on my Privacy Policy / Privacy Statement page.

Q22) What is your bootleg policy? - top / bottom of page
      A22) Bootleg recordings are those recordings made by individuals of concerts, either live, or broadcast on radio or television. By definition, bootlegs are not authorized by the artist and no portion of the sale of these recordings ever goes to the artist. I don't see any problem with making a recording off the public airwaves for your own personal use, but in the best interests of the artist, and to protect the copyright status of the artist's and/or songwriter's work, these recordings should never be sold or given to anyone else. As I see it, the entire purpose of the whole bootleg industry is to deprive the artist/songwriter of just compensation for their work. I do not list bootlegs in my discographies, unless they were officially authorized by the artist, and I do not trade bootlegs, or link to any site whose purpose is the unauthorized, and probably illegal, trading of bootlegs. If you find a link in the Index that mistakenly links to such a site, please write and the link will be deleted.

Q23) How do you define "recording artist"? - top / bottom of page
      A23) With the growth of the Internet and what it is possible to post on-line, I feel it necessary to clarify matters. When I say "this artist has recorded" or "recording artist", I am using the narrow definition that a "recording" is an actual physical object, CD, Cassette, LP, VHS Video, etc., that was released by a performing musician. Copies of each release must be identical to each other, and produced in sufficient quantity that a reasonable number of people have a chance to purchase a copy. Examples which do not fit this definition: five CD's made for the members of a five piece band and nobody else, and one of a kind CD's created by a performing musician on their PC for their own personal use. As defined here, a performing musician whose only recordings are only available on-line, and/or someone who does not intend to ever perform in front of a live audience, does not qualify as a "recording artist" due to the fact that when the musician's Internet account is deleted, the recordings will no longer exist. Non-recording artists and non-performers are listed on the on-line music page.

Q24) How do you define a "compilation album" vs. a "collection album"? - top / bottom of page
      A24) A "compilation album" is a recording by a single artist/group with tracks taken from previous recordings they have made. A "collection album" contains tracks by multiple artists, where, in most cases, every track is by a different artist/group. As an example, as it is used at this site, there are only "Judy Collins compilation albums". A "Judy Collins collection album" cannot exist, unless it would refer to an album of songs that Judy Collins composed which are performed by one or more different artist/groups, and on which she does not appear.

Q25) In your discographies, why do you mention, "track times are not listed"? - top / bottom of page
      A25) This is really a reminder to you, the recording artist, that some extremely important information was accidentally omitted when you created your CD package. Without track times, DJ's cannot plan the timing of their show. Unless you are well known to the DJ, or there is some other powerful reason the DJ wants to put your CD on the air, it is a rare DJ who will sit down and take the extra time to mount a new CD and write down on a slip of paper or in the liner notes, the missing track times. In the days of LP's and cassettes, the DJ had to sit with a stop watch and play the entire album or just the track(s) they wanted to air. Except as noted above, a new CD without track times will NOT! be played on the air. Therefore, don't waste your money shipping your new CD to a radio station if you don't include track times.
      Added note: Rich Warren, host of "The Midnight Special" on WFMT in Chicago, IL since 1982, gave a seminar at the FARM Conference held in Lake Geneva, WI on 10/24-26/2003. He stated that about 30% of CD's received at radio stations without track times are discarded without ever being listened to! If you really want your CD to spend eternity in a local landfill, then don't bother including track times on any of your releases.
      Added note: (posted 8-05-2008 to one of the mailing lists I am on from a Folk/Bluegrass DJ) - "I got one from a prominent band. A slim CD case with a CD inside with the band's name written on the CD with a Sharpie. That's it! I gave it a listen, it was good, then I threw it in the trash. Unusable without any info."

Q26) How many musical artists and groups do you list on your entire Web site? - top / bottom of page
      A26) Over 13,000 at the latest approximate count (5-12-2005), including over 8,000 Folk musicians, and (as of 6-06-2009) over 8,800 Wisconsin musicians in every known genre of music.

Q27) What kind of "Artists" are listed on your Web site? - top / bottom of page
      A27) Almost every use of the terms "artist" and "artists" on this entire domain refers to "musical artists" and/or "performing artists". Except for the Oshkosh Northwestern Artist of the Week there are no other links or information of any kind about physical artists or graphical artists, i.e. no painters, no sculptors, artisans, and nothing related to them. If there are any other exceptions to this among the 13,000+ musicians and musical groups listed here, I am not aware of them. Please write if you find such a name here, and I will create an exception list. There is one amateur architect/sculptor/builder here, Alex Jordan, Jr., because he created "The House on the Rock" in Spring Green, WI, and designed many of the Music Machines there. And there is one painter here, Marco Sassone, because he was my Mother's favorite artist. She lived in Glendale, CA, and he lived somewhere in Southern California at sometime prior to her death in 1995.

Q28) Why don't you link to MySpace, Facebook and similar "Social Networking" pages? - top / bottom of page
      A28) Mainly because of "Friends". MySpace pages almost always either crash my browser, crash my computer itself, or drop my dialup connection. But that is my problem. Because of the many! graphics installed by "Friends", pages take between two and ten minutes to load via dialup. But primarily I don't because of the many K-12 students that visit my site every day. I have yet to see a MySpace page for a musician that was appropriate to display projected on a screen in a fifth grade classroom. "Friends" can be counted on to install either profanity or other "adults only content" on their musician's page entry, which is unnacceptable. "Friends" cannot be counted upon to post 100% G-Rated comments, 100% of the time. I would only link to a MySpace page where all "Friends" entries have been moved to somewhere other than the musician's main page, AND "Friends" are not allowed to post on the main page. I have yet to see one like that. The same applies for Facebook because visitor postings there are also not guaranteed to be 100% G-Rated.
      3-09-2007 Update: A recent local newspaper article brought this point home clearly. It told the story of someone who died and "Friends" were leaving condolences on their MySpace page. In response to family members who wanted the page deleted, myspace.com replied it could not, without the original owner's written permission! This proves that "Friends" are in complete control of what they initially post. The X-Rated "Friends" content on MySpace and Facebook pages is there because the page owners specifically choose to leave it there! For "Social Networking" sites, I only include a text link which cannot be clicked.

Q29) How much recording session data do you include in your discographies, dates, times, take numbers, etc.? - top / bottom of page
      A29) None. Never in my life have I ever seen a record label's or recording studio's "recording ledger". I have no clue what one looks like. My data is strictly from the actual, physical, officially released recordings themselves. If the liner notes state, "recorded at (studio name)", "recorded at (concert/festival name)", or "recorded on (date)", I include that, but otherwise I have no source information about when or where any song or album was recorded. So if a song or even an entire album was recorded in the studio, but never released, I have no information of any kind about it.

Q30) How do you handle obsolete pages and pages that for some reason have to be moved to a different location? - top / bottom of page
      A30) After I have determined that a page on my site is obsolete, or I have moved it, I either 1) replace the old page with a note stating that the page has become obsolete, and why all previous information on the page has been deleted, or 2) replace all the previous information on the page with a permanent link to the new location.
      Since 11-25-1995 when my site first went on-line, with only two exceptions, I have never deleted any other page with no explanation, or moved a page and completely deleted the old page. Why don't I do that, when most other Webmasters do? Anyone who just might have linked to a page at my site or placed a bookmark in their personal browser to one of my pages is my friend. I have always felt that it is wrong to punish my friends by breaking their links or their bookmarks, so I will not do that.

Q31) How many ways do you respond to attempted correspondence with visitors to your site? - top / bottom of page
      A31) ONE AND ONLY ONE WAY - E-Mail! 1) I had a note on my Facebook page that everyone must contact me via E-Mail and not via posting on my Wall or some other Facebook method. On 8-18-2009, some nitwit refused to do that and tried to write to me about some genealogical question: "... sent you a message. To reply to this message, follow the link below: http://www.facebook.com/..." I have no idea what he wanted, because in order to prevent anyone from ever doing that again, I had no choice but to immediately deactivate my Facebook account. 2) Today, 9-03-2009, a musician friend tried something similar: "... sent you a private message on Infoaxe - please respond, click on "...infoaxe.com/..." This is also unacceptable, so although I had never heard of Infoaxe before, I immediately unsubscribed from ever receiving another Infoaxe message. 3) I have no intention of deactivating them, but this same policy applies to my High School Reunion and Wikipedia Editor pages. In conclusion, if what you have to say to me is not important enough to be sent via E-mail to henkle@pobox.com, then it is not important enough for me to read it.
      Oops, my mistake. The Infoaxe message I got was SPAM, because it was not sent by the musician it said. He got the same message from another friend, and that friend didn't send it either. Anything anyone gets from Infoaxe is SPAM, so report all such messages to your Mail provider, do not unsubscribe or respond to Infoaxe in any way, and do NOT download toolbars or anything else from their Web site. Most toolbars like theirs keep track of where you browse and use the information to target you with more SPAM.

Q32) What does "cannot stitch" mean? - top / bottom of page
      A32) On 12-22-2010 my XP computer crashed. Best Buy was able to make copies of most of my data from the failing drive. However, they refused to recover any software, something about, it was illegal for them to do so, even though I owned the programs. So I lost the "PhotoStitch" software that came with my old broken and discarded Canon camera. I searched the Canon site but could not find "PhotoStitch", and so far, after three months, Canon has not yet bothered to answer my request E-Mail about it. So I can no longer stitch together the two 12" x 8-1/2" upper and lower halves of an LP jacket scan. I can find no other FREE software that does the same thing. I have tested several panorama stitching programs but they don't work with .jpg files. So I can only install the two unstitched halves of each LP jacket in all of my future labelographies.

Q33) What is your Dead Link Policy? - top / bottom of page
      A33) 09-12-2011: What do you do when you find a dead link on your site which no longer works? In years past I would have searched for a new site, but now I just delete it. Approaching 70, I know there will come a day when I can no longer maintain my site. I am making provisions so that my site and all of its detailed information on 1,100+ pages will remain on-line a long time after I'm gone. When it gets to the point that I can no longer maintain this site, I plan to remove all off-site links, so visitors will not become frustrated with future uncorrectable broken links and stop using it. The factual internal information installed here since 1995 about thousands of musicians, recordings, festivals and other live music venues, record labels and more, and hundreds of music reference books should remain valid and useful long after I'm gone and the site is no longer maintained or links anywhere. In the meantime I will remove dead links, and spend my time adding more and more permanent information about musicians. I'm not planning on going any time soon, I'm just planning for the future.

Q34) What are your plans for the huge Folk Music Bibliography page? - top / bottom of page
      A34) 02-17-2014: My Folk Music Bibliography page was one of the first music related computer files I started creating back in 1991 for installing on-line at the old FTP site: the UW-Parkside (UWP) Internet Music Archives. I never dreamed that 23 years later I would have documented 600+ Music Reference Books, most of which I now own. Listing a few books all on one page was a reasonable idea in the beginning, but the page's size has since become unwieldy. So I have started to break up the original single Bibliography page into multiple specialized Bibliography pages by either music genres or specific musical or other topics. For a complete list of all these new smaller Bibliography pages, see:
      New pages split off from my original Bibliography page

All dates at this site are in either mm-dd-yy or mm-dd-yyyy format.


      12-26-1999 note: Nobody ever actually asked this question, but I just wanted to put this personal history note somewhere for posterity's sake.

Q99) What is the significance of the 10-11-1991 date mentioned in my Musician's Birthdays/Bibliography Copyright Notice? - top / bottom of page
      A99) UW Oshkosh got connected to the Internet sometime in the summer of 1991. 10-11-1991 was the day I discovered the UW-Parkside (UWP) Internet Music Archives. That day changed my life. I found the discography of one of my favorite musicians which listed some of the album titles I had and many I didn't. I wrote the author but he had no plans on adding track titles to his file like some of the other Archives discographies had. So I thought, what the heck, I would create a discography which had detailed information I was interested in, and hoped others might be also. My first effort was a list of 21 different Folk Music Collections albums I had, which was submitted to Dave Datta, creator of the Archives, on 11-30-1991. Doing that one discography was fun, so I created a few more. I guess I got a bit carried away, because by January 1995 there were discographies for over 60 other different artists and groups I had submitted to the Archives. If I had never found Dave Datta's "Music Archives", this "Folk Library Index" might never have existed. These initial discography creations explain why some pages at this site have 1991-1994 Copyright dates even though this site did not exist before 11-25-1995.


#Contact
URL: http://folklib.net/index/faq.shtml
Please send additions and/or corrections to Doug Henkle: henkle@pobox.com
P.O. Box 331, Ripon, WI 54971-0331

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