ECOLM was a time-constrained project with two primary aims: to create a resource and to explore its potential for musicological and computational research. Thus the time available for the former was limited by the amount of time required in order to achieve the latter. Whilst we anticipate augmenting the resource as future opportunities present themselves, there is as yet no direct financial support for further work. Inevitably these factors impact upon the quantity of encodings and on the editorial standards by which they are presented.
In general, the versions of the music rendered to screen and MIDI on the website are diplomatic facsimiles, in the sense that they preserve (where possible) original scribal idiosyncracies, including system breaks, errors, changes of notation and so on. None of the editions stored in ECOLM has been sufficiently proofread and verified to be considered ‘publication’ quality in the normal sense, and those who use these editions are encouraged to check them against the original source or a facsimile where available. There are many encodings in ECOLM that have been checked thoroughly and of whose accuracy we are reasonably confident. However, since we have not yet employed a formal proofing procedure, we can guarantee no more than that at the present time.
The database you are about to enter is a work in progress, with information being added and amended all the time. The current state of the database is shown below, but the numbers here are likely to increase as we upload music that we have in our files.
| Sources: | 116 | |
| Pieces (information): | 2830 | |
| Pieces (music): | Raw, unedited: | 542 |
| Being edited: | 0 | |
| Draft levels: | 808 | |
| Public draft: | 40 | |
| Public: | 229 | |