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This is a project set up with the backing of the Pratt Green Trust, to provide a database of information about hymns in current use in Great Britain and Ireland. For this purpose, `in current use' means `contained in collections which are in current use'; the actual popularity or otherwise of individual hymns is not considered. Over 200 such collections of hymns and songs have been drawn upon for the database.
A preliminary version of the database was published in 1997. This contained first lines and titles of all the hymns in the selected books, linked to the book titles and to their authors and translators, with appropriate search links between the three types of index. It was entitled HymnQuest: A Dictionary of Hymnody, and was made available both as a printed book and on Read-only CD.
The project development has continued since 1997 and a much larger publication entitled HymnQuest 2000 was published in May 2000. As well as extending the list of current hymn-books represented, this also includes various forms of index to the music of hymns and songs and to the composers and arrangers of these. A large number of hymn texts is included in full, though there are some copyright restrictions on the ways in which these can be used if they are not in the public domain. This version of the HymnQuest is at present available only on CD. Several upgrade versions have been issued, the current version being HymnQuest Version 5 (January 2005)
The project has been developed and marketed by Stainer & Bell Ltd, with an advisory group consisting of Canon Alan Luff, Dr Bernard Massey and Mr Bernard Brayley and the continuing work of Miss Joyce Horn.
For further information, see the HymnQuest web pages at
http://www.hymnquest.com
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(Hymn Society of GB & I . Site edited by David Goodall .This page amended 8/2/05. For site details click here . . . )
(The Society's Web Site is held as part of a larger collection (www.canamus.org) of which the Home Page may be accessed directly from here.)