Library and Information Science Commons^™

The Scholarship Of Rock Music: Knowledge Mapping Through Bibliography, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

Scholarship on rock and popular music has grown dramatically in volume and methodological variety and complexity including extensive use of interdisciplinary approaches. There currently is no comprehensive resource for scholars and educators to explore monographic scholarly literature on rock. I will showcase a new annotated bibliography, with a focus on disciplinarity and methodology, which provides a lens into how this scholarly discourse has evolved. This bibliography also makes visible broader trends regarding research topics in rock and popular music. This project will be a resource to academics and other authors, faculty designing and updating curricula, and librarians interested in building …

Flexi Discs: The Audio Format That Time Forgot And Remembered Again, Junior R. Tidal

Publications and Research

Flexi discs, also known as phonosheets and Soundsheets, are “flexible” plastic sheets that can be played on turntables. This audio format was used for a wide variety of purposes including promotional materials, giveaways, and inserts into magazines, stemming from their origins in playable chocolate discs in the early 1900s (Parks, 2018). At one point in time it was a $9 million dollar business, with the U.S. government as one of the top users of the technology (Penchansky, 1979). Their disposable nature, weight, ability to print directly on material, and affordable manufacturing made the flexi disc an alternative to vinyl pressings. …

The Roles Of Academic Libraries In Shaping Music Publishing In The Digital Age, Kimmy Szeto

Publications and Research

Libraries are positioned at the nexus of creative production, music publishing, performance, and research. The academic library community has the potential to play an influential leadership role in shaping the music publishing life cycle, making scores more readily discoverable and accessible, and establishing itself as a force that empowers a wide range of creativity and scholarship. Yet the music publishing industry has been slow to capitalize on the digital market, and academic libraries have been slow to integrate electronic music scores into their collections. In this paper, I will discuss the historical, technical, and human factors that have contributed to …

The Mystery Of The Schubert Song: The Linked Data Promise, Kimmy Szeto

Publications and Research

Linked open data promises global interconnectedness of a vast amount of data. Web technologies promise to lower the barriers to accessing information and to enable knowledge production of massive scale. But can the web of data answer a music reference question? Starting with a seemingly impossible search for a Schubert song, this article describes how linked data technologies could overcome some limitations of catalog searching. However, technical and conceptual challenges are intertwined in the library community’s effort to publish linked data. Through an analysis of contrasting data models, this article offers a linked data reading of medium of performance and …

Untangling Medium Of Performance For The Linked Data Environment, Kimmy Szeto

Publications and Research

Medium of performance is critical for music retrieval and has long been a complex facet of music cataloging. Recent years saw significant strides towards standardizing the vocabulary and encoding medium of performance data in the MARC environment as well as in the linked data environment. In the course of leading the MLA BIBFRAME task force to examine the potentials of expressing, standardizing, and implementing music-related data and data structures, I discovered our handling of medium of performance has not been consistent with respect to the FRBR constructs of “work” and “expression,” as well as the concept of “event.” After the …

Report Of The Cmc Bibframe Task Force To The Board Of The Music Library Association, Kimmy Szeto, Anne D. Adams, Kirk-Evan Billet, Catherine Busselen, Kevin S. Kishimoto, Anna A. Loprete, Lisa Mcfall, Sophie Rondeau, Tracey L. Snyder, James L. Soe Nyun, William R. Vanden Dries, Hermine Vermeij

Publications and Research

The BIBFRAME Task Force was established by the MLA Board of Directors in October 2014 for a two­-year period with the following charge:

● Provide a voice for the music library community in the formation and testing of the Bibliographic Framework Initiative (BIBFRAME)
● Test the BIBFRAME schema and the LC MARC­to­BIBFRAME converter with regards to how they handle music materials, including scores and sound recordings
● Provide feedback to LC and Zepheira on particular areas of interest for music, such as medium of performance, genre, preferred titles and name­title authorities
● Identify a means for continually monitoring, evaluating and …

Engaging With Research And Resources In Music History Courses, Jennifer Oates

Publications and Research

With the ever-expanding sea of resources available to students today, it is now more important than ever to teach students how to navigate, assess, and interpret resources. Given the ease of access to information, students tend to seek out the path of least resistance, most often a Google search and/or Wikipedia. Their unfamiliarity with print resources, such as thematic catalogues, means they are missing out on significant music scholarship that is not available online or through Google. Today’s students have grown up searching the internet. The single-search approach of a web search leaves many students confused by terms like …

Al Sears' Saxophone At York Library, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Among the memorabilia in the York College Library's Music History Archive is a saxophone that was owned by the renowned Jazz musician Al Sears.

Scholarly Monographs On Rock Music: A Bibliographic Essay, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

Purpose This article is an overview of scholarly monographs on rock music from 1980 to the present. It provides an overview to the literature for practical purposes of collections development as well as giving the reader insight into key issues and trends related to a interdisciplinary topic that attracts scholars from many disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.

Design/methodology/approach This bibliographic essay, focusing on works related to American culture and of a general nature, includes an overview and historical background; a discussion of how music and ethnomusiciological scholars approach the topic; geographic approaches; literature on four key icons (Elvis, …

To Cite Or Not To Cite? Confronting The Legacy Of (European) Writing On African Music, Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

English Abstract:

The current citational practice in Western scholarship is ideologically loaded, being far more suited to a written economy than a primarily oral culture in which knowledge is preserved in memory and disseminated through repeated performance. The impact of orality on musical scholarship should be more closely investigated; African scholars have all too often become informants rather than theorists of their own traditions. It is therefore proposed that the routine citation of a body of scholarship developed without Africa's historically-specific intellectual needs and ambitions in mind should in fact be discouraged.

German Abstract:

Die heutige Zitierpraxis der westlichen Wissenschaft …

Mallorca: Centers For Musical Historical Research, Antoni Pizà, Joan Parets I Serra

Publications and Research

Majorque, la plus grande des îles Baléares, a une riche histoire musicale. Depuis plus de dix ans, le Centre de documentation musicale historique local a entrepris de recueillir, conserver et propager le patrimoine historique et musical des îles Baléares. L'article retrace l'historique de la recherche dans la région et donne un aperçu des collections et des activités du Centre, qui incluent des publications, des colloques réguliers et des rencontres scientifiques.

Mallorca, eine der größten Inseln der Balearen, hat eine reiche Musikgeschichte. Seit zehn Jahren ist das lokale Zentrum für historische Musikdokumentation dabei, das historische und musikalische Erbe der Balearen zu …