It is also the title of the underlying reference book: The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad: A Descriptive Catalogue, edited by Bengt R. Jonsson, Svale Solheim and Eva Danielson, in collaboration with Mortan Nolsøe and W. Edson Richmond, published in 1978 in two places: as volume 5 of the series Skrifter utgivna av svenskt visarkiv (Stockholm: Svenskt visarkiv), and as volume 59 of series B of Oslo's Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning (The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture) (Oslo, Bergen, and Tromsø: Universitetsforlaget; ISBN 82-00-09479-0).

It attempts to classify all specimens of traditional ballads known in one or more of the Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, Faeroese, and the extinct Norn).

such as "A 38" (A 38: "The Two Sisters"),[1][2] "A 50" (A 50: "Harpans kraft"), or "A65" (A 65: "Elvehøj — Knight released from elves at dawn").

The number of ballad types in each group in the second printed edition of TSB from 1978 is given within parentheses.

Norsk visearkiv [no], which is responsible for the corresponding Norwegian ballad project, has decided to employ the TSB classification directly.