Navigation:   TowerBells Home  => What's New

What's new in these pages?

This page reports on the evolution of this Website as it occurs, both for the sake of those who like to follow such things and to help the Webmaster remember what was done and when.  The changes are reported in reverse chronological order, with the latest at the top.  Dates show when groups of pages were installed on the Web server, which is not always the same as the internal dates of revision of individual pages.

This report covers not only the root directory but all subdirectories.

NOTE:  If you have a tool or method for monitoring changed Webpages, this is the only page that you need to monitor on this Website, because it will always point to all other recently changed pages where the cause of the change was something other than correction of a typographic error or addition of an external Weblink.


2024/03/24 - Revised 148 site data pages and added 29 (see list or map); revised affected indexes and regional maps accordingly.  This included mapping mobile instruments to their home cities, as well as finding the actual locations of three instruments which previously were identified only by city; their files were renamed.

Added the definition of "bell metal" to the Glossary.

Added the carillon of Jasna Góra Monastery (Częstochowa, Poland) to the list of degraded instruments in Europe, and added its four great bells to lists and regional locator maps.

Changed the status of the Deagan tubular chime in El Paso TX from unknown to gone; revised affected indexes and regional maps accordingly.

Revised some of the text of the page about Instrument Type Abbreviations in Indexes to clarify usages of key words.

Revised the Observations in the Summary of carillon keyboard ranges worldwide.

Revised the maintenance page slightly, with the important addition of a Postscript about the future of the database.

2024/03/23 - Updated Apple Maps authorization token.

2024/01/11 - Revised the Glossary statement about hybrid carillons; supplied a new index to hybrid carillons worldwide, and standardized dual indexing of those instruments as both traditional and non-traditional (with "hybrid" tags).

Revised the index of travelling carillons into a main page plus three indexes, each listing all known mobile instruments in a different order; added a worldwide map of such instruments.

Expanded the page about special characters to explain more fully the encoding methods that we use.  That also tells what you should do when you observe erroneous characters anywhere.

Added a new project to the essay on philanthropy.

2024/01/01 - Added a new page about Website security, prominently linked from the home page; removed two previous "new" items there.

Revised the list of foundries to make it more useful.

2023/12/30 - Fixed numerous internal and external link errors (not enumerated).

2023/12/28 - Improved the visibility of zvons through the addition of a set of indexes to zvons (paralleling similar existing sets for more common types of instruments), the revision of regional map titling and the addition of a world-wide regional map for zvons.
The last of those changes required expanding the Map Systems page, which was given further (and unrelated) minor improvements.

Made a number of minor revisions to the Data Top page, most notably the temporary suspension of the hardcopy/PDF service.

Regularized text that mentions non-indexing by foundry, for various reasons, in 106 site data pages (not itemized).

Revised the "Direction" note block which follows (and floats in this page):

"To travel far, you must choose a direction"
William F. Woo, "Letters from the Editor" (chapter title)

The direction in which the TowerBells Website is traveling can be seen in the worklist which is set out below.  In roughly prioritized order, this shows the major tasks which the author has set himself, and which are intended to result in future news items on this page.

  • Solve the problem of why WordPerfect does not preserve the width of spaces in fixed-pitch fonts; this is preventing the production of correctly-formatted PDFs from the database that underlies this Website.
  • Identify (and if possible correct) all entries where an instrument has an Extended phase but not a Foundation phase.
  • Solve the problem of why Map Service Select does not always pass through a map request when it should automatically do so based on previous settings.
  • Post to the site data pages all additions and changes reported by correspondents, found in publications, or discovered from Google Alert messages, revising indexes, locator map links and regional locator maps as needed.
  • Improve the new Error 404 handler to redirect requests for deleted site data pages automatically.  (It already tells human visitors why they are no longer present.)
  • Construct a page that describes and illustrates the various types of keyboards, chimestands and chiming racks that are in use in various parts of the world.
  • Finish mapping independent great bells already listed in Europe, Russia and Asia-Pacific (Oriental profile).
  • Investigate anomalies in various summaries, as well as discrepancies between instrument counts in summaries and the corresponding indexes.
  • Enhance the statistics and/or filter panes on regional maps with respect to type of instrument, type of institution, denomination.
  • Extend the Google site locator map functions to show (additional) nearby sites at the user's request.
  • Move existing photos in site data pages from Links block to Photos block.
  • Search my photo archives for relevant material which can be posted to site data pages, including photos contributed from others which should have been posted already.
  • Regenerate all site data pages older than July 2012 for single-phase sites for which information exists about auxiliary mechanisms and/or tower details.
  • Add numerous entries to the lists of great bells for continental European countries.
  • Write an essay on HTML maintainability, for the guidance of those who don't appreciate the necessity of it and the subtleties involved.
  • Find and fix obsolete links to the Global Gazetteer.
  • Supply all of the "planned" items listed on the Data_Top page.
  • Review the index to the work of miscellaneous bellfoundries to determine whether additional bellfoundry-specific indexes should be constructed.
  • Regenerate all Summaries that are more than a year old.
  • Actively hunt for information to resolve various "unknown" details (foundry, year, weight, number, keyboard ranges, etc.), including location and status of Deagan tower chimes that are not yet mapped.
The words "roughly prioritized" indicate that work on many of these tasks may be going on simultaneously, so that particular sub-tasks may be completed in a different sequence.  There will also be changes from time to time that have no apparent connection to any of these major tasks.  Furthermore, there will be no explicit description of revisions to this task list, nor any record of prior revisions to it, though it will usually move up on this page whenever such a revision occurs.

/signed/   Carl Scott Zimmerman, database owner

2023/12/05 - Regenerated 632 site data pages covering all known multi-phase instruments, to show complete known technical details of phases prior to the most current one.  (All other site data pages — more than 2500 — are for single-phase instruments.)  This includes 17 site data pages (see list) for instruments which had been updated in the database but were by error not posted to the Website; the remaining 615, being essentially unchanged, are not itemized.  An enhancement to the report-generator program enabled these changes to be made; this eliminates the need for references to hardcopy for further details of an instrument's prior history.  At the same time, telephone and fax numbers for such sites in the USA and Canada were re-formatted for mandatory 10-digit dialing, though the matching revisions of the underlying database were not date-stamped.  In addition, site locator map links in those pages were modernized where appropriate. 

Substantially improved the history of the Holbrook bellfoundry.

2023/11/18 - Revised 7 site data pages (see list or map); these changes from the database should have been posted more than two years ago.

Fixed mapping errors for Kubinka, Russia.

Corrected sequence numbers for some great bells of Germany.

2023/11/04 - Revised 13 site data pages and added 1 (see list or map);

Supplied 40 missing gazetteer links (not itemized).

2023/11/01 - Revised 15 site data pages and added 8 (see list or map); 2 great bells were added (one new, one previously ignored); revised affected indexes and regional maps accordingly.

Added a new entry to the page about bell books.

Expanded the discussion of "carillonneur" vs. "carillonist" in the Glossary.

Split 2022 news into the separate history file referenced below, to save space here.

Added or fixed several great bell links from their instrument pages (not enumerated).

2023/10/21 - Revised 9 site data pages and added 5 (see list or map); revised affected indexes and regional maps accordingly.

Added a new page of Summaries of makers of carillons, etc.

Updated the lists of miscellaneous foundries that do not have their own indexes.

Added a paragraph to the Map Systems page to explain the varying availability of the mapping services that can be used for site locator maps, and made a variety of other minor improvements to that page.

Reorganized the Contents section of the Data Top page.

2023/09/25 - Revised 38 site data pages (including recategorization of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, MX) and added 1 (see list or map); revised affected indexes and regional maps accordingly.

Added a variety of external links to various site data pages that were not updated in the database, and therefore are not enumerated here.

2023/09/19 - Revised 49 site data pages and added 9 (see list or map); deleted one (Music School, Vleuten NL); revised affected indexes and regional maps accordingly.

2023/08/21 - Revised 54 site data pages and added 45 (see list or map); revised affected indexes and regional maps accordingly.
All pages for traditional carillons in Germany have been revised to link to the appropriate page on the current DGV Website, whether or not they were otherwise updated in the database.

Added a new page listing degraded European tower bell instruments.

Clarified the conventions used for telephone number area codes, in the page about standard format for site data pages, and made various other minor improvements to wording there.

2023/07/31 - Revised 45 site data pages and added 20 (see list or map); revised affected indexes and regional maps accordingly.

Updated links on some site data pages (not enumerated, though telephone numbers have been reformatted in the database).

Revised the worldwide summary of instruments by country and type.

2023/06/22 - Corrected character encoding in 34 assorted pages (not itemized); modernized locator map links where needed.

2023/06/10 - Updated the Website map to reflect changes in the past four years.
Revised the Data Top page to provide a more visible link to the recently added page about Wanamaker bells, which itself was revised slightly.

2023/05/30 - Revised 21 site data pages and added 1 (see list or map); revised affected indexes and regional maps accordingly.

2023/05/16 - Fixed several broken links, and improved a few locator maps for great bells not in carillons.

Removed to archive all update lists for 2010.

2023/05/11-13 - Changed to UTF-8 the page encoding of all root pages and essays, as well as some text pages in the data section, to make it easier to verify that the public Website matches private mirrors (which are on Macintosh machines).

Fixed several broken links.

2023/04/29 - Added a new Error 404 handler to cope with all known "deleted" site data pages.

2023/04/23 - Revised 26 site data pages, renamed one and added one (see list or map); removed the site data page for the Deagan tubular chime reported to be in Shalom Baptist Church in Philadelphia PA, upon discovering that this congregation is a successor in the building that once held the Reformed Episcopal Memorial Church of Our Redeemer; replaced the site data page for the Deagan tubular chime of the former Linwood Presbyterian Church in Kansas City MO with a paragraph in the page about sites that are no more; revised affected indexes and regional maps accordingly.

Expanded the entry for the Todd-Donigan Iron Company (Louisville, KY) in the research notes for the Goeppinger book based on a report of another bell bearing that firm's name.

Added a new article about Wanamaker bells.

Supplied missing links to Italy pages in the worldwide list of Summaries.

Corrected the "What's New" links on the Data Top pages (with and without frames).

2023/03/18 - Revised 25 site data pages and added 4 (see list or map); removed the site data page for the McShane chime in Shenandoah PA, replacing it with a paragraph in the page about sites that are no more; revised affected indexes and regional maps accordingly.

Revised the Tower Bells introductory page to explain more clearly what we do or do not list with respect to peals and clock-chimes, and to clarify the paragraph about bell wieights.

Updated Apple Maps authorization token.

2023/02/17 - Revised 24 site data pages (see list or map); revised affected indexes and regional maps accordingly.

Slightly revised the article on Taylor's Doubled Trebles, including correcting the number of duplicated bells at Springfield, Massachusetts.

Revised the essay on philanthropy.

2023/01/21 - Revised 35 site data pages and added 3 (see list or map); replaced the site data page for the Deagan tubular chime chime at Brookings, SD, with an entry in the list of tubular sites that are no more; revised affected indexes and regional maps accordingly.

Revised the story of the builder.

Fixed several broken internal links.

2023/01/03 - Expanded the Goeppinger book research notes regarding New York City bellfounders C. Brinckerhoff (scroll down),   Force (both Cornelius and Ephraim),   and Sayre & Force;  added a sentence to the end of the paragraph about Tips for use.

Expanded the description of the lost chime of jeweler E.P.Percival of Philadelphia.

Added a new list of carillon keyboard indexes to make it easier to compare the keyboard ranges of traditional carillons in different regions of the world.



Prior years' news has been moved into the following separate files to save space here:

2022 - See What was new in these pages during 2022?
2021 - See What was new in these pages during 2021?
2020 - See What was new in these pages during 2020?
2019 - See What was new in these pages during 2019?
2018 - See What was new in these pages during 2018?
2017 - See What was new in these pages during 2017?
2016 - See What was new in these pages during 2016?
2015 - See What was new in these pages during 2015?
2014 - See What was new in these pages during 2014?
2013 - See What was new in these pages during 2013?
2012 - See What was new in these pages during 2012 - the year of the merger?
A Website history explains the merger.
2000-2011 - See What was new in the TowerBells pages before the merger?.
1996-2012 - See What was new in the GCNA data pages before the merger?


[Tower Bells Introduction] [Website Map] [The builder] [What Is New]

This page was created 2000/03/02 and last revised on the topmost date above.

Please send comments or questions about this page to csz_stl@swbell.net.