CONCLUSIONS ON THE WALL

The EDLIS Bibliography

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                  Good car to drive, after a war
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"They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made,
exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things"
-- Bob Dylan 1965 -- Color version

What is EDLIS?

EDLIS was originally an acronym for the Exchange Dylan Lyrics Internet Service. Its exact origins are shrouded in mystery and the subject of ancient Internet folklore. Some suspect that it was started by Hugh Brown, as a way to help him organize his vast warehouses of Dylan material, but such secrets may never be revealed.

Actually, in the early days of computers, those technically inclined began to exchange Dylan lyrics on computer floppies for further study. In 1986 the first U.K. collectors came onto the Internet and the more adventuresome of these began to experiment with this new vehicle for the exchange of information. Not universally accepted, some of the exchangers stayed with their dependable floppies. Those who had become net aware adopted the EDLIS name, which emphasizes both the role of the Internet and the service aspect of their mission.

Later the rec.music.dylan UseNet Newsgroup (often called rmd by those impolite enough to obscure things by acronyms) was formed, and it was of course of interest to those in EDLIS, a loosely affiliated group of anarchists who have banded together for the purpose of making known and available the works of Bob Dylan. Although its original focus was to provide the lyrics to Dylan songs when needed, its activities have expanded into many other areas.

EDLIS Official Policy Statement

When word reached EDLIS Centrale that the compiler had spent his EDLIS sabbatical monkeying around on this bibliography, instead of listening to Dylan, in violation of his basic EDLIS training, there was serious concern about his sanity. It was decided that the official EDLIS policy on the printed word should be made better known, in hopes of protecting the sanity of others. After a visit from the EDLIS Knee-Capping agent, the compiler agreed to provide a link to this white paper.

About the compiler

If you selected the color version of this page, you obtained a nice color photograph of the latest model of the EDLIS car. Ron Chester became the Bibliographical Agent in March of 1994, long before EDLIS traded up to this fancy red classic. As a result, he is still driving the original old fashioned EDLIS car (first displayed on this page) in his forays to used bookstores in search of new Dylan material. While not nearly as pretty as the new model, he finds that it makes this website a bit more zippy in loading.

After graduating from Oberlin College, and receiving a graduate degree at the University of California, Berkeley, in one of those ironies of life, bibliographer Chester finds himself decades later residing in Palo Alto, near the green pastures of Stanford University, across-the-Bay arch rivals to UC Berkeley. His EDLIS archives are housed near what was originally the center of the small town of Mayfield, which was swallowed up by Palo Alto in the 1920's. This community is about 40 miles south of the magical kingdom of San Francisco. For those geographically inclined, maps of the entire SF Bay Area (100K), Palo Alto (200K), and Downtown Palo Alto (75K) are available.

Having begun work on this bibliography in 1959, it was first made available on the net with one 98K text file completed in May 1994. Conversion of the bibliography to the web and expansion of its content began in October 1995, and has now reached over 1.7 Meg of data in more than 280 files. Having completed the basic structure of the web version in May 1996, the compiler was seen emerging from behind the monitor for the first time in weeks, muttering "Okay, I've had enough, what else can you show me?"

Ron Chester
EDLIS Bibliographical Agent
Palo Alto, CA

In ev'ry Work regard the Writer's End,
Since none can compass more than they intend;
And if the Means be just, the Conduct true,
Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due.
-- Alexander Pope --

Books organized by author name

Select by author's last name:

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

To author or title index. Or perform a keyword search.

-- to Table of Contents

=========================== Thanks Bob! =============================