LIS 776: Music Librarianship

LIS 776: Music Librarianship

Fall 2006

David Lesniaski

From the course prospectus:

I intend to cover the topics music librarians are expected to brush up against: the nature/purpose/history/context of music libraries and collections, the different types of music libraries (and librarians) there are; professional issues; users and the ML community; acquisition and collections; reference, resources, and scholarship within music librarianship and the scholarly apparatus supporting research in music; music cataloging, and the points of contact with and divergence from other types of librarianship.

However, what I think will make this different from other music librarianship courses (not to mention any other libe sci course you are likely to take) is that I would like to organize the course around musical “threads”—that is, real music that will serve as a basis for our explorations of the different aspects of music librarianship. Is there a systematic or at least rational way to find and study and organize whatever “slice” of music we look at, or are the current structures oriented toward asking and answering certain questions or types of inquiry? How do we know? What do we do about this?

The following syllabus is an outline of some topics and approaches we’ll cover. There will be a lot more detail about each week and about the assignments in particular in Blackboard. One course is not enough to cover all topics in music librarianship—even cataloging deserves a course plus a practicum all its own. Therefore, I have been rather selective. If there are topics or issues not in the syllabus but which you would like to pursue, let me know and we’ll figure out how to accommodate your interests.

Tentative syllabus

Week	Date	Areas	Topics		Readings	Assignments
1	9/7	Introduction. Users, the profession, the culture	Characteristics Of users Of music libraries Of music librarianship History of ML Literature of music librarianship Careers For-profit institutions?			Bring in a piece or pieces (that you like!) representative of a “body” of music. We’ll play it or listen to it, discuss it, then look at some questions to keep in mind as we go through the course. Ideally this music will lead toward your final project. DUE TODAY
2	9/14	Introduction. Users, the profession, the culture (continued)	[ditto]		Griscom: -Foreword & Afterword -Education (Morrow) -Angell, Richard S. "Report and resolution on music library training read at the meeting of the Music Library Association, Smith College, Nov 19, 1937," in NOTES (no. 7: May 1940), pps 17-18. JSTOR - Watanabe, Ruth. "American Music Libraries and Music Librarianship: An Overview in the Eighties," in NOTES, vol. 38, no. 2 (Dec 1981), pp. 239-256. JSTOR -Davidson, Mary Wallace. "American Music Libraries and Librarianship: Challenges for the Nineties," in NOTES, vol. 50, no. 1 (Sept 1993), pp. 13-22. JSTOR - Brown, Christine D. "Straddling The Humanities and Social Sciences: The Research Process of Music Scholars," in Library & Information Science Research, no. 24 (2002), pp. 73-99. Online through Periodical Cat -Casey, Jeanette, and Kathryn Taylor. “Music Library Users: Who Are these People and What Do They Want from Us?” Music Reference Services Quarterly 3, no. 3 (1995): 3-14. ON RESERVE - Burkat, Leonard. "The Challenge of Music Librarianship in the Public Library," in NOTES, vol. 38, no. 1 (Sept 1981), pp. 7-13. JSTOR - Hunter, David. “Core Competencies and Music Librarians” Online at http://www.musiclibraryassoc.org/pdf/Core_Competencies.pdf	1. Everyone should at least skim each article listed at left. 1a. Then, each person should choose one of the articles to summarize for the rest of the class today. In your class presentation, be sure to discuss any connections (or lack of connection) between the recommendations or content of your article with the other articles. DUE TODAY. 2. Look through any two issues in any 5 years of Notes in these ranges: 1934-44 1945-55 1956-65 1966-75 1976-85 1986-95 1996-present That is, pick ANY 5 years, consecutive or not, within one of these decades. Then look at ANY two issues in each of the years you picked. - What are the topics of the principal articles? Or, more finely, do they focus on a particular aspect of librarianship (ref, cat, …), type of music (folk, classical, …), medium; are they theoretical or practical, … [the “chief” articles are those listed first, before all the reviews and other notes]. - Second part: in the “reviews” sections, what type(s) of music received the most review space? Books? Recordings? Be prepared to give a report to the class (you probably should prepare a brief written summary for class distribution as well). DUE NEXT WEEK (9/21)
2	9/14	Cataloging music: introduction
For the next 6 weeks we will devote part of the class to music cataloging and the other part to the “stuff” that music libraries collect.
		Cataloging and Music library collections	Cataloging topics	Music library collection topics
3	9/21		Uniform titles and descriptive cataloging	Acquisitions	See especially Anna Seaberg:” Music selection sources on the WWW,” online at http://www.halcyon.com/aseaberg/ The best resource for cataloging music (in my opinion) is Michelle Koth’s site at Yale, “Music cataloging at Yale” Online at http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/music/musicat.htm This site contains a lot of information and has links to many other good sites and documents. Also, keep handy this online reference: Papakhian, A. Ralph. “Music score cataloging basics.” It’s a word document available online. To get to it, go to Koth’s site and look under “cataloging resources.” Yet another resource that has especially good exercises and examples is Fairclough, Ian. “Training materials for cataloging music.” Online at http://library.music.indiana.edu/tech_s/mla/fair.txt Chapter in Griscom: Papakhian, A. Ralph. "Cataloging." Wise, Matthew. “Principles of music uniform titles.” Online at http://library.music.indiana.edu/tech_s/mla/ut.gui Smiraglia, R. "Uniform Titles for Music" Cataloging & classification quarterly v9 no 3 (1989) p. 97-114. ON RESERVE	Notes review DUE TODAY. Cataloging assignment 1. Exercise in creating uniform titles for items lacking them, and practice doing some descriptive cataloging. DUE NEXT WEEK
4	9/28		Authority control	Collection Development	Chapter in Griscom: Daniel Zager. "Collection development and management." McPherson, Steve. Dollars and sense of digital music. Pulse of the Twin Cities, v.10, no. 20, Aug, 16, 2006, p. 4-6. ” Online at http://pulsetc.com/article.php?sid=2647	Cataloging assignment 1 DUE TODAY Find & critique a music CD policy according to Zager’s recommended practices; add your own critiques based on considerations from this course. DUE NEXT WEEK
5	10/5		Subject headings	Music publishing (all formats)	Chapters in Griscom: -George Sturm: Music publishing. -Tom Moore: Sound recordings -H. Stephen Wright: Technology Chapter 2 “Printed music publishing,” in: Fling, R. Michael. Library acquisition of music: a basic manual. Music Library Association basic manual series, 4. Lanham, MD : Scarecrow Press, 2004. ML111..F48 2004. ON RESERVE See Grove on -Printing and publishing of music; also -Computers and music: music publishing Jenkins, Martin. "A Descriptive Study of Subject Indexing and Abstracting in International Index of Music Periodicals, RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, and The Music Index Online," in NOTES, vol. 57, no. 4 (June 2001), pp. 834-863 online through Library Literature Hemassi, LCSH for music, Cataloging & classification quarterly, v. 29 no 1-2, (2000), p. 135-67. ON RESERVE	Collection policy critique DUE TODAY Everyone should give a short in-class presentation on some aspect of the history of music publishing—for example, focusing on overview or place (country or city or time) or individual publishers or relationships between publisher / composer, or current state of music publishing, or topic of your own choice. DUE NEXT WEEK Cataloging assignment 2. Critically examine some standard cataloging; discuss what other possible headings/genre terms could be added. Would you be willing to put these in the authority file for the work? DUE NEXT WEEK
6	10/12		Classification	The music business; “commercial” music	Chapter. 7, “A new music economy” in Kusek, David, and Gerd Leonhard, The future of music. Berkleee 2005. ON RESERVE Chapter 2, “Dewey Decimal Classification” in McKnight, Mark. Music classification systems. Scarecrow, 2002. ON RESERVE .	Publishing and Cataloging assignment 2 DUE TODAY As you read “A new music economy,” have a look at another book on the same topic (the future of music, especially the changes technology is bringing). Skim it, summarizes (on the blog) and compare to the assigned reading. It would be nice if someone gets an older item (1990s…) Blog posting for class discussion. DUE in TWO WEEKS (10/26) Cataloging assignment 3: score and recording cataloging: descriptive, authorities, subjects, classification. DUE in TWO WEEKS (10/26)
10/19			We will have a “break” week in here—no formal class, but time for individual conferences on your projects.
7	10/26		Metadata	OK, so what’s in the music library?	Vellucci, “Music metadata and authority control in an international context,” IAML 2000, in Notes 57 no. 3 (March 2001) p. 541-54. online through Library Literature Vellucci, “Metadata and authority control”, LRTS, v. 44 no. 1 (Jan 2000) p. 33-43. online through Library Literature Hemmasi, Why not Marc? (discussion of Variations project): http://variations2.indiana.edu/html/british-library-JISC-workshop_files/frame.htm David Clarke, “Musical autonomy revisited” in The cultural study of music. Taylor & Francis, 2003. ON RESERVE	Blog posting on “the future of music” DUE TODAY Cataloging assignment 3 DUE TODAY Cataloging assignment 4: online scores and music files. DUE NEXT WEEK What effect might your views on Clarke’s discussion have on what your music library collects and how that collection is described and made accessible?
8	11/2		Bibliographic relationships	OK, so what’s in the music library?	Vellucci, S. “Bibliographic relationships and the future of music catalogues.” Fontes Artis Musicae v. 45 no. 3-4 (Jul-Dec 1998) p. 213-26. online through Library Literature Smiraglia, R. “Further reflections on the nature of a work” in Smiraglia, R. Works as entities for information retrieval. Haworth, 2002. Also pub. as Cataloging & classification quarterly, v. 33 no. ¾, 2002. ON RESERVE	Cataloging assignment 4 DUE TODAY Think about the whole network of relationships we should consider when cataloging music (in any format): the item, the work, relationships to other works, especially in light of Vellucci, RDA and FRBR. Cataloging assignment 5: Connecting works. DUE NEXT WEEK
9	11/9	Connecting users and materials	Reference and instruction: history and practice		3 chapters in Griscom: -Lasocki “reference” -Druesdow “reference sources” -Troutman “user education” From there… Christensen, Beth. "Warp, Weft, and Waffle: Weaving Information Literacy into an Undergraduate Curriculum," in NOTES, vol. 60, no. 3 (March 2004), pp. 616-631. online thru LL Cary, Paul, and Laurie Sampsel. "Information Literacy Instructional Objectives for Undergraduate Music Students: A Project of the Music Library Association, Bibliographic Instruction Subcommittee," in NOTES, vol. 62, No. 3 (March 2006), pp. 663-679. online thru LL Compare to Members of the Bibliographic Instruction Committee, MLA Midwest Chapter. "Bibliographic Competencies for Music Students at an Undergraduate Level." Notes 40, no. 3 (1984): 529- 32. JSTOR	Cataloging assignment 5: DUE TODAY What has the conceptual change in instruction been from the 1984 article to the 2006 article? Today, also consider the “Berman” question: does our quest for authoritative information/sources marginalize non-traditional sources? à In your music library, how would you construct a list or pathfinder to essential sources, print & electronic, for a particular type, genre, etc. of music, area of research, etc.? That is, do this in 2 parts: DO one, then also discuss HOW you did this. DUE in THREE WEEKS (11/30). Do NOT use the body of music that you are working on for your final project!
10	11/16		Music bibliography		MUST have a look at IU music site: http://library.music.indiana.edu/music_resources/ a little outdated, but good list of links to some more current sites. Hunter, David, et al. "Music Library Association Guidelines for the Preparation of Music Reference Works." Notes 50, no. 4 (June 1994): 1329-38. . JSTOR How does this stand up now? Have a look at Basic music library (in reference) and other standard sources that are here, then have a look at the “standard” list of sources from BML & then the lists from the UW class (compile into 1 doc, prob. easiest).	[rather than doing additional formal assignments, spend the next few weeks on your final project]
11	11/30		Music technology; digital music libraries, intellectual property		Basics: Wikipedia is good source for articles on computer music, digital audio, MP3, etc. etc. Griscom: Davidson, “Copyright” See MLA copyright site: http://www.lib.jmu.edu/org/mla/ see the Variations project at IU: http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/variations/ this is a good overview: http://variations2.indiana.edu/html/british-library-JISC-workshop_files/frame.htm and especially read the original proposal: http://variations2.indiana.edu/proposal.html note that the project has turned into Vartiations2. I suggest you start at the original variations page and peruse the 2 project sites from there. There is an especially good list of papers/presentations about the project under the Variations2 site. See also the additional list of copyright related sites and online music collections (on Blackboard). See also the 6 articles from Communications of the ACM August 2006 issue (available online through Ebsco host) about new tools for music information retrieval	Pathfinder DUE TODAY IP = more than just copyright—it covers a wider realm. How are different formats treated? Who is on which “side” of the access vs. control debate? Why? How does the MLA statement offer guidance in this discussion?
12	12/7		Popular culture, world music.		Walker, Music in the academic library of tomorrow. Notes 59 n4 June 2003, p 817-27. online through Library Literature Stokes, Martin, “Globalization and the politics of world music” in The cultural study of music. ON RESERVE	We will examine in some detail how popular and world music are collected and cataloged in different libraries, and we’ll also compare scholarship (bibliographic and analytical) of popular/world music with that of classical music.
13	12/14	The profession	Looking forward: future of the profession. Discussion of topics we haven’t yet covered, e.g. gender.		Maple, Amanda. Online music services and academic libraries. ARL bimonthly report 244, Feb. 2006. online through Library Literature Oates, J. “Music librarianship education: problems and solutions.” Music reference services quarterly, v. 8 no. 3, 2004, p. 1-24. ON RESERVE Lesniaski, David. “A profile of the Music Library Association membership.” NOTES, v. 56 no. 4 (June 2000). online thru LL Quist, Ned. “Tomorrow’s music librarian” in Careers in music librarianship II. Scarecrow, 2004. ON RESERVE	- Music Library Association. Music Librarianship: Is it for you http://www.musiclibraryassoc.org/employmentanded/musiclibrarianship.shtml - Hunter, David. Core Competencies and Music Librarians http://www.musiclibraryassoc.org/pdf/Core_Competencies.pdf Take the above two as points of reflection to compare with the other assigned articles; blog discussion. Final project due (class presentation only; document due 12/19).