The philosophy of DiscRecord
DiscRecord is a reference catalog of the recordings people learn from: audiobooks, lecture courses and training, on disc, tape or record, identified edition by edition, from the real thing in someone's hands.
Why DiscRecord was built
Music collectors have Discogs. Film collectors have Blu-ray.com and DVDCompare. Video game collectors have MobyGames and Redump. The recordings people learned from have nothing like these.
For most of a century, people learned from records, tapes and discs: language courses on vinyl, typing and shorthand lessons on reel-to-reel, sales and self-improvement programs on cassette, how-to videos on VHS, then audiobooks, lecture courses and software tutorials on CD and DVD. Millions were sold, and most are now out of print. The companies that made them have merged, closed or moved to streaming, and their catalogs went with them. Library records and bookstore listings cover a few of these discs, usually with one ISBN for a whole course and no word about which part is which. A set of four discs that share one barcode can't be told apart from a listing that only knows the barcode.
DiscRecord is for the people who still have these recordings, want to know exactly what they have, and want to keep a record of it before it's gone.
What we catalog
Anything recorded to teach or to be read aloud, on any physical format:
- Audiobooks
- Abridged and unabridged, from the big audio publishers to small presses, on CD, MP3-CD, cassette or record.
- Lecture courses
- College-style courses sold as sets of parts with guidebooks, such as The Great Courses from The Teaching Company, in every format they came in.
- Language courses
- From the record albums and reel-to-reel sets of the 1950s and '60s to the cassette and CD courses that followed.
- Skills and self-improvement
- Typing, shorthand, sales, public speaking, memory, motivation: the programs people played in the car or at the office.
- Software tutorials
- Training on floppy disk, CD-ROM and DVD-ROM that teaches a program or a programming language, the kind Lynda.com, VTC and many others once sold in boxes.
- Video lessons
- How-to on VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc and DVD for anything that can be taught: crafts, cooking, fitness, music lessons, trades, home repair.
- And their companions
- Guidebooks, workbooks, transcripts and inserts are catalogued as part of the package they came in.
The formats run from vinyl records, flexi discs and reel-to-reel tape through 8-track, cassette and microcassette, VHS and Betamax, LaserDisc and floppy disk, to CD, DVD and Blu-ray. The same course sold on cassette and later on CD is one title with two releases, so you can see every way it was published.
Music, films and games already have good homes, so they aren't catalogued here, unless they were made to teach: a guitar lesson, a language film or a typing tutor belongs on DiscRecord.
How we catalog
- Describe the copy in your hand. Every release on DiscRecord is one physical product: a particular edition, part or pressing. Part 1 of a four-part course is its own release, because that's what a collector holds.
- Record codes exactly as printed, and say where. ISBNs, barcodes, product codes and matrix numbers are how editions are told apart. We copy them as they appear, odd prefixes and all, and note where each one is printed, because the same number on a different spot can mean a different product.
- List what's in the box. How many discs, tapes or records, which books, which inserts. A complete set and an incomplete one look identical in a listing; they don't look identical here.
- Show the real thing. Scans and photos of an actual copy, front, back, spine and the disc, tape or record itself, are worth more than any publicity image.
- Every change is public. Anyone with an account can add or correct a release. Every change is kept in its history, with who made it and what it altered, so mistakes can be seen and undone.
- Start from what's known, then improve it. Some releases began as imports from Open Library and are marked that way. They're a starting point, not the last word; a collector with the disc in hand can always make the record better.
The catalog belongs to everyone
Open Library shares its data freely, and DiscRecord was built on that generosity. We return the favor: the whole catalog is dedicated to the public domain and can be downloaded in one file, every day, directly or by BitTorrent. If DiscRecord ever went away, the record wouldn't go with it.
The download holds the catalog only. Accounts, email addresses and collections stay private.
Join in
If you have a shelf of audiobooks, a stack of course binders, a box of training tapes or a language course on vinyl, they belong in the record. Create an account, scan the insert, and type the codes exactly as you see them. Every release added is one more that won't be forgotten.