purpose of the index is to give each song a unique identifier. The numbers were assigned on a more or less arbitrary basis, and are not intended to carry any significance in themselves. However, because of the practicalities of compiling the index (building on previously published sources) it is true as a general rule that older and better-known songs tend to occupy low numbers, while songs which are obscure have higher numbers. Closely related songs are grouped under the same Roud number. If a trusted authority gives the name of a song but not the words it is assigned Roud number 000. The Index cross-references to the Child Ballad number, if one is available for the particular song in question. It also includes, where appropriate, the Laws number, a reference to a system of classification of folk songs, using one letter of the alphabet and up to two numeric digits, developed by George Malcolm Laws in the 1950s. History The index was compiled and is maintained by Steve Roud, formerly the Local Studies Librarian in the London Borough of Croydon. He was also Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society. He began it in around 1970 as a personal project, listing the source singer (if known), their locality, the date of noting the song, the publisher (book or recorded source), plus other fields, and crucially assigning a number to each song, including all variants (now known as the "Roud number") to overcome the problem of songs in which even the titles were not consistent across versions. The system initially used 3x5-inch filing cards in shoeboxes. In 1993, Roud implemented his record system on a computer database, which he continues to expand and maintain and which is now hosted on the website of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. In the past few years, the numbers have been widely accepted in academic circles. Similar collections James Madison Carpenter's collection has 6,200 transcriptions and 1,000 recorded cylinders made between 1927 and 1955. The index gives the title, first line and the name of the source singer. When appropriate, the Child number is given. It is still a largely unexploited resource, with none of the recordings easily available. The Cabinet of Folksongs (Dainu skapis) is a similar index of almost 218,000 Latvian folksong texts, created by Latvian scholar Krišjānis Barons at the end 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. The Essen folk song