To describe a ballad as a "Child ballad" is to immediately authenticate its bona fides. Both the original five-volume set, published in ten-parts, and later reprints from the mid-twentieth century, are long out of print, and are occasionally available from booksellers at high cost. Available online versions of the books are often formatted poorly and searching for text is difficult or impossible.

Heritage Muse Publishing Publishing created English & Scottish Digital Edition to solve these issues. Designed to be especially useful for scholars, educators, singers, and enthusiasts, it's a comprehensive, digitally searchable and printable version. Individual ballads - or indeed the entire 2,800+ plus-page collection - can be printed out. Looking up unfamiliar words is easy using built-in hyperlinks between lyrics and glossary. The Gazetteer supplies the geographic location of places mentioned in the ballads with brief historic notes, and is cross-referenced to both the ballad texts and newly developed maps. Additional images, commentary, music tracks, and other enhanced content will soon be available here.