<i>LCSH</i>for Music: Historical and Empirical Perspectives

Bm, Harriette Hemmasi; Mlis,; Bma, J. Bradford Young; Mls,

doi:10.1300/j104v29n01_10

Cited by 6 publications

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“…Because the subject headings are pre-coordinated text strings (or , individual instrument, voice, or ensemble terms are not indexed in a manner able to be parsed by machines; they may be accessed by keyword or subject browse searches, however. It is not feasible, using subject headings, to construct a search for a combination of instruments and/or voices (a common user task encountered in music libraries 20 ) and retrieve a full set of results. A user might expect that the heading Flute and piano music would retrieve all works written for the combination of flute and piano; however, the headings Sonatas (Flute and piano) and Suites (Flute and piano), as well as a host of other genre/form/medium combinations would also need to be searched to recall a complete set.…”

Section: Problems With Library Of Congress Subject Headings (Lcsh) Fo...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Faceted Vocabularies for Music: A New Era in Resource Discovery

Iseminger¹,

Lorimer²,

Mullin³

et al. 2017

Notes

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The new faceted music vocabularies, the Library of Congress Medium of Performance Thesaurus (LCMPT) 2 and the music portions of the Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT) 3 , are long-anticipated products in a history of problemsolving approaches toward descriptive terms for music. These approaches have evolved from the early days of modern music librarianship through more recent efforts to establish a thesaurus of music terminology. MLA's Cataloging and Metadata Committee has collaborated with the Library of Congress for the past several years in a multi-phase endeavor to design and build out these new vocabularies. A detailed account of this endeavor, as well as challenges for implementation of the vocabularies in library metadata, will be discussed. HistoryThe early work on music subject headings took place in the print-only environment of card catalogs and reference sources, which ultimately forced decisions about entry points in the catalog. Should musical works be listed primarily under their form or their instrumentation? The answers could vary according to the type of use, research, or performance, for example. In the card catalog, form typically won over medium of performance, because all works have a medium, while form provided a more specific qualifier. 4 2 Consistency was a major concern in early subject analysis. Librarians sought uniformity in subject terminology across libraries, particularly in terms of heading construction. A standard print list could also serve as a training tool, to assist catalogers in applying headings for specific subjects with which they were not as familiar. In 1933, the Music Library Association (MLA) compiled such a list of subject headings based on Library of Congress catalog cards, and in 1935, the Library of Congress (LC) published a list of subject headings for books about music. 5 These endeavors provide early illustrations of how music librarians conceived of a music thesaurus as a set of descriptors that would include headings applicable to all types of musical resources. 6 The 1980s and 1990s: Towards a Music ThesaurusThe advent of computer technology, online catalogs, and database tools provided an impetus for developing more fully structured music vocabularies. Inspired by the success of the Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) sponsored by the Getty Research Institute, as well as the well-designed RILM Thesaurus, MLA formed the Music Thesaurus Project Working Group in 1985. The group envisioned a comprehensive thesaurus covering the entire discipline of music that could be used not only in cataloging all formats of music materials for libraries, and for book and periodical indexing. 7 Following the report of the Working Group in 1989, Harriette Hemmasi (then music librarian at Rutgers University; currently University Librarian at Brown University) began development of a prototype music thesaurus in 1991 with Dr. James Anderson and Fred Rowley, through a grant from the Council on Library Resources. Anderson and Rowley ha...

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Section: Problems With Library Of Congress Subject Headings (Lcsh) Fo...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Faceted Vocabularies for Music: A New Era in Resource Discovery

Iseminger¹,

Lorimer²,

Mullin³

et al. 2017

Notes

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“…Hemmasi and Young (2000) provide some of the historical background, including the role of the Music Library Association (MLA) in efforts to develop popular music headings. In 1971, Sanford Berman of the Hennepin County Library published his Prejudices and Antipathies: A Tract on the LC Subject Heads Concerning People, in which he charged that LCSH terminology was obsolete and prejudicial, particularly for popular music.…”

Section: Library Of Congress Subject Headingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a step toward improving subject access in this area, a report was undertaken by MLA to study the subject headings and their application." 33 In 1984, the Library of Congress (LC) surveyed librarians (via the Music Cataloging Bulletin) about their needs for providing subject access to jazz and popular music. Price (1985) reports that of the 125 respondents, 48 percent said they were dissatisfied with LCSH.…”

Section: Library Of Congress Subject Headingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Lexicon of Love”: Genre Description of Popular Music Is Not as Simple as ABC

Kulczak

Lennertz

2011

Music Reference Services Quarterly

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In 2007, the University of Arkansas Libraries received a large donation of 5,295 popular music recordings. This gift nearly doubled the existing CD holdings and greatly altered the collection's emphasis. The present authors sought to enhance retrieval in the local catalog, concentrating particularly on subject access. To this end, they analyzed popular music genre terminology used by three well-known online resources: allmusic.com, Wikipedia, and The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. This article reports their findings about the genres that each assigned to the specific artists in the collection and whether the genres were applied consistently among the three resources.In 2007, the University of Arkansas Libraries received a gift of 5,295 audio materials in the form of 3,434 CDs and CD singles and 1,861 LPs, EPs, and 45s from the estate of an alumnus. The donor had collected popular music from the late 1970s through the early 2000s. A preliminary review of the collection suggested that while the collection contained classic rock and roll, heavy metal, and blues, the donor had been particularly interested in club and dance music. Prior to the gift, the libraries' collection supported the university's curriculum and therefore almost exclusively consisted of classical music and jazz recordings. In particular, the new gift of 3,434 CDs almost doubled the existing CD collection and greatly changed its emphasis. The authors were confronted with the question of how to best identify the recordings in the collection to enhance retrieval through the library catalog.

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“…Few vocabularies for describing music (rather than works about music) exist. The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), the primary vocabulary used to provide subject access to music, has evolved in fits and spurts over time (Hemmasi and Young, 2000). Despite its ubiquity, LCSH music headings have frequently been criticized for its inconsistency in terminology (see Boyd, 2002).…”

Section: In Harmony Cataloging Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

The IN Harmony project

Riley

Dalmau

2007

The Electronic Library

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe a user‐centered approach to developing a metadata model for an inter‐institutional project to describe and digitize sheet music collections.Design/methodology/approachQuery logs analysis, card sort, and task scenario studies were used to explore users' needs for the discovery of sheet music. Findings from these studies were used to design an interoperable metadata model for sheet music meeting the needs of libraries, archives, and museums.FindingsThe user studies conducted demonstrated to the project team the need and methods for recording titles, names, dates, subjects, and cover art for sheet music described as part of the IN Harmony project. It was also learned that tying user studies directly to the design of metadata models can be an effective approach for digital library projects.Practical implicationsThe metadata model developed by the IN Harmony project will be reusable for other sheet music collections at a wide variety of institutions. The user‐centered methodologies used to develop the metadata model will similarly be reusable for other digital library projects in the future.Originality/valueThe approach described in this paper brings together standard user study methodologies with metadata design in a novel way, and demonstrates the effectiveness of a methodology that can be reused to plan metadata creation in future digital projects.

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LCSHfor Music: Historical and Empirical Perspectives

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Faceted Vocabularies for Music: A New Era in Resource Discovery

Faceted Vocabularies for Music: A New Era in Resource Discovery

“Lexicon of Love”: Genre Description of Popular Music Is Not as Simple as ABC

The IN Harmony project

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