Field notes

Field notes is the reference room. The mixtape and interview pages are the headline pieces; the field notes are the long, quiet entries that sit underneath them and hold them up.

The room has one anchor page right now and grows around it.

• The folk and roots reference shelf is the working bibliography for the rest of the site. Records, films, books, radio archives, and a few specific reading routes.

A handful of shorter field-note entries also sit in this room, including older catalogue notes that have outlived their original posts.

What field notes are for

A field note is a piece of writing that is not trying to land a single argument. It is trying to capture what is on a desk during a longer reading project. The notes get used by other pieces on the site as references, the way a critic might leave annotations in a margin and come back to them when writing the longer piece.

That changes how the writing works. A field note can be a list. A field note can read like an annotated bibliography. A field note can be a long paragraph that strings together five records and a film without giving any of them a full essay. The format is more flexible than the rest of the site's rooms.

How field notes connect the rest of the rooms

The reference shelf doubles as the dictionary for the editorial layer. When a Mixtapes entry references a record by title without explaining its background, the field notes are usually where the longer note lives. When an Interview page mentions a film in passing, the field notes either already have a paragraph on it or they will, eventually.

In practice, that means a few common reading paths look like this:

• Read a mixtape page first, hit a record you do not know, drop into the folk and roots reference shelf for the longer note.
• Read a Movie Lounge piece, follow it back to the field notes for the documentary's reading list.
• Read a Picture Book entry, follow it back to the photographer's small section in the field notes.

What field notes will not do

A few clarifications that come up often.

• Field notes are not shopping pages. They will recommend records, but they will not link out to specific listings.
• Field notes are not gear reviews. The site does not write about turntables, cartridges, headphones, or speakers in this room.
• Field notes do not paywall reference content. The shelf is open and stays open.

Where to read first

If you came directly to this page, start with the folk and roots reference shelf. The American roots music primer is the entry essay that pairs with it. Together they do the work of orienting a new reader to the rest of the site.

For the slower angles, the collecting vinyl field notes page is the practical guide that goes with this room without being part of it. The history page sits next door and reads as the editorial argument for the shelf as a whole.