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Review: Baxter’s Database of Violin and Bow Makers v3.0 by Edward D. Baxter

Review: Baxter’s Database of Violin and Bow Makers v3.0 by Edward D. Baxter

Reviewed by Randy DeBey

Originally published in American Lutherie #84, 2005 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Five, 2008



Baxter’s Database of Violin and Bow Makers v3.0
Edward D. Baxter
CD-ROM, 2002
www.violinmakersdb.com.

On the rare occasions that I need information about the maker of a particular instrument, I don’t like to spend a lot of time getting it. Due to the ridiculously high prices of violin-maker reference books, I have to get whatever I can from the web, and sometimes that’s a complete waste of time. Now there’s another option that’s less expensive than buying books, and likely more productive than web searching. Edward Baxter of West Camp, New York, has compiled a database from twenty-four violin and bow maker references. He actually started his database several years ago, and the version reviewed here (v3.0) was released in June 2004. It contains information for 19,506 makers.

The ViolinMakers Database software was created for PCs running Microsoft Windows (sorry Mac users). It comes on one CD and is easy to install. It includes a stand-alone version of the Microsoft Access database query engine dedicated to searching this database.

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