Item Detail
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Plantinga, Harry
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Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Calvin Institute of Christian Worship -
Hymnary.org : a comprehensive index of hymns and hymnals
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Website
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2007
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English
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Sacred Music; Worship Services
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Plantinga, Harry. “Hymnary.org: A Comprehensive Index of Hymns and Hymnals.” https://hymnary.org/ (accessed 17 June 2019).
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An index of hymns and other worship music. Useful for researching a specific hymn, looking for specific arrangements, and finding new music to use in services (“for worship leaders, hymnologists, and amateur hymn lovers alike,” from source).
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Contains thousands of North American hymns and worship songs, including the Dictionary of North American Hymnology. Most entries are for English hymns, but other languages such as Spanish are included as well. Currently there are 21 denominations represented. Information can be submitted by volunteers, but there are also editors to input the information to the website.
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The homepage includes a basic search engine, links to more specific search pages (advanced, melody search, and popular hymns), and links to the most recent blog posts. The subsections of the website are located in two locations (top bar and left side bar), although the order is slightly different.
Under Discover, several filters are available to use in browsing the database; these include texts, tunes, instances, people, and hymnals. The Exploration Tools page offers more browsing tools including lectionary week, topic, scripture, featured hymns, element of worship, denomination, articles, hymnal collections, a melody search tool, graphs of word or phrase usage within a certain time period, and global hymnody map. The Topic tool also has its own link in the left side bar. The Popular Hymns page lists the most popular 15 hymns, the top 15 current trending hymns, and an alphabetical list of the 250 most published hymns included in the index. The Lectionary lists the readings for the coming Sunday and a few corresponding hymns selected by a Hymnary editor. Pages for past and future weeks are also accessible.
For those who have registered with the site, the Collections tab lets users access the hymns they have starred, their FlexScores (a printing tool for purchase), the list of hymnals they own, and files they have purchased. The Store provided choral anthems, instrumental arrangements, and transposable scores available for purchase. There are several filters to help users find a desired product, including publisher, shipped item or download, difficulty level, format, instrumentation, season, or by using a more general search bar. Finally, the Connect tab leads to a blog, forum, volunteer information page, and links to the Hymnary.org Facebook and Twitter pages. Tutorial videos and an About Us page are available in the left side bar. -
The homepage offers some sample search phrases to help a novice get started. Each browse page has a definition of the filter in use (i.e. Browse Instances: An instance is a combination of a text and tune as published in a particular hymnal.). Search results can be sorted in ascending or descending order by several topics, depending on the page.
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The two search bars are a little inconsistent with each other. However, one can hide the left side bar for convenience.
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Joanna Armstrong
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Internet
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6444