Hymnary.org: a comprehensive index of hymns and hymnals (review)

Hymnary¹ is a free online resource that provides a searchable database of over one million hymn tunes and texts. The project is hosted by Calvin College's Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL)² and currently has a staff of six as well as an editorial board. A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and cooperation with the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada has allowed for the incorporation of the Dictionary of North American Hymnology as well as the addition of half a million scanned hymnal pages to the database. Hymnary was designed for use by two distinct audiences: church musicians and hymnology researchers, though there are certainly additional potential applications by other types of users. Users can set up free accounts that allow them to create libraries of hymnals to search within and participate in forum discussions, but it is not necessary for general searching.

On the homepage, there is a basic search box that searches all database fields. Results from this search are divided by Hymnary's five categories (Text, Tune, Hymn, Person, and Hymnal), but this faceting is not always helpful, as a search for a general term like "love," for example, brings back tens of thousands of results in some of those categories. This method of searching is most useful if the user has either no idea of where to start or a very specific topic. Search results will also display in another category called Products, which is essentially an online store. Hymnary is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and this arrangement helps fund the project and keeps it free for users. There is also advertising on some pages. These commercial aspects of the site are mildly intrusive at worst.

For more advanced searching there is a set of customizable advanced search boxes in the left margin on every page of the site. The default search fields are Text Name, Tune Name, Person Name, Hymnal, Number, Topics, and Scripture, but a drop-down menu allows for the addition of more fields, like Meter, Incipit, Year Written, Publication Date, and Publication Place. To search in the Incipit field, users should input the beginning of the tune using numbers to indicate scale degrees. For example, the tune New Britain (commonly known as Amazing Grace) would be listed as follows: 513132165. In addition to the search fields listed above, users can choose to display their results in only one of the five database categories. If only one field is searched, the database selects the result type automatically (a search by text name will return results in the Text display, and so on) but this feature could be useful if the user is searching multiple fields simultaneously. The database creates a new sticky identifier field after a selection has been made from search results. A user can then narrow down the results by using other fields but if one wants to start an entirely new search, one needs to either clear the content from that field or return to the homepage to clear all fields. Search results for a particular text or tune direct the user to an authority page that allows for exploration of related tunes or texts, media, as well as information about the text or tune like author, composer, meter, key, date, and language. One difficulty I have found in searching is that there does not seem to be a way to effectively search for a particular scripture passage. The database does not allow one to search by verse, only by chapter. The search omits colons, making it impossible to use the standard convention for verse identification. The advanced searching tips do not address this and my own experimentations with syntax were unsuccessful. The only option seems to be to search by chapter and then browse through pages until the desired passage is found...