National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 60 | December 2002


Extended Goodwill and Cheer to
All our Kinetica Customers


With Christmas almost upon us, Kinetica staff would like to thank the 1100 libraries that have supported our resource sharing activities throughout the year and encourage you all to celebrate this Christmas season using Kinetica’s premier service, the National Bibliographic Database.

While tradition suggests ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ comes to us from France, we have sought to forge our own traditions and, with the aid of the NBD, offer our interpretation of this favourite Christmas song.

For the ‘Twelve days of Christmas’, if you search the NBD—and here’s where it loses any resemblance to the original—you’ll find:

Three drummers drumming
Just a small cacophony
Check the Cat in the Hat Songbook
It’s certainly worth a read

There are eight pipers piping
Though you must truncate this search
It lists both scores and Irish songs
That would sound surreal in church

Then there are six lords a leaping
One with contents notes for viewing
If you don’t like half-told stories
Then the summary’ll keep you stewing

There are two ladies dancing
And they’re joined in quiet refrain
By two maids a milking
In ‘Piano Music, Arranged’

Only one swan a swimming
Sadly looking for a mate
And with just one goose a laying
It’s not a pretty fate


Seventeen golden rings
A mixed bag that’s for sure
Country, Jive and Doowop songs
But no trace of Tolkien lore

And just like the original
We have four calling birds
In tales of folk and fauna
From sublime to quite absurd

With five French hens in Kinetica
We’ve two more than the quota
We’ll de-dup ‘Birds of America’
So there’s one less for the Rota

Eight turtle doves,
And no, there’s been no duplication
We’ve got Grimm, Bartok, Flores
And folk songs that are Haitian

There’s fourteen partridges in excess
But the one that caught our eye
Is Richard Rodney Bennett’s
Delicious ‘Partridge Pie’

If you search by any keyword
You will find some Christmas cheer
The NBD’s the thing to search
All throughout the year.

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Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: gateways@nla.gov.au