About DNAH (Dictionary of North American Hymnology)

DNAH was a project of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada which indexed the contents (first lines and authors) of hymnals published in the U.S. and Canada before 1974. The DNAH database was merged into the Hymnary database early in Hymnary's existence, adding about 5000 hymnals and a million texts.

• The texts in these hymnals were added in alphabetical order with "d" preceding the numbers, so an editor should arrange the texts in numerical order (use "Arrange Hymnal" under Editor Tools)
• The first lines and authors are generic, i.e. they may not be exactly as in the hymnal. Some first lines have bracketed words and the corresponding authority id may also include the bracketed words
  • Remove the bracketed words in the first line to reflect what is in the hymnal
  • Check the authority id to see if it looks like bracketed words are reflected in the id; if they are, go to the authority and change the id
  • Go to the authority and check to see if the first line there is also bracketed; if it is, remove the bracketed words and change it to what is in the hymnal.
• Similar first lines were placed under the same authority, or there may have been mistakes made in the indexing; therefore, check the authority to see if the instance text belongs to it - does the first line roughly match? is the author the same?
• Add any missing information to the authority, such as meter, original language first line, language, and copyright statement (add "Public Domain" if you know the text is public domain)