Riley, Jenn. "Online Sheet Music," Music Library Association Annual Meeting, March 3, 2007, Pittsburgh, PA

1. Online sheet music
Jenn Riley
Metadata Librarian
Indiana University

2. Some uses of digitized sheet music
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Study
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Musical content
Lyrics
Cover art
Ads
Performing
Locating physical collections for further
investigation
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3. Selecting sheet music for digitization
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Can’t digitize everything
Can’t select at the item level
Libraries consider
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current usage
relationship to other collections
notable collectors
significant parts of larger collections
local user needs
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4. But how to describe it?
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Existing collections generally not described at
the item level
Most early online sheet music collections
used customized metadata models
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Many similarities
Many differences
IU’s IN Harmony: Sheet Music from Indiana
project has attempted to build upon these
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5. IN Harmony metadata needs
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Work for diverse project partners
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Indiana University Lilly Library
Indiana State Library
Indiana State Museum
Indiana Historical Society
Facilitate interoperability
Effective user access
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6. IN Harmony user studies
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Search logs
Card sort
Task scenario
Email content analysis
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7. IN Harmony categories
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Title elements
Name elements
Publication elements
Subject elements
Identification elements
Note elements
Cover information
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8. IN Harmony subject elements
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Topical subject
Name as subject
Form/genre
Instrumentation
Geographic subject
Language
Local subject
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9. Sources of online sheet music
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Many, many individual sites
Sheet Music Collections, maintained by Lois
Schultz
Sheet Music Consortium
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10. Sheet Music Consortium overview
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Production site launched in 2003
Harvests metadata using the Open Archives
Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
Not just for online sheet music
Provides aggregated search, then sends the
user back to the hosting institution for access
Long-term goal: to be the place to go for
online sheet music, similar to a union catalog
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11. SMC collections indexed
Library of Congress, Music Division
47,528 records
Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections
Library, Duke University
20,157 records
Lilly Library, Indiana University
17,937 records
Maine Music Box
11,779 records
Lester Levy Collection, Johns Hopkins University 11,590 records
National Library of Australia
6,731 records
UCLA Music Library
4,593 records
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12. Next steps for the SMC
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Submitted proposal for a 1-year planning grant to
start October 2007
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Will study user needs and data provider needs
Meeting in Bloomington Fall 2007
Meeting at MLA 2008
Long-term plan
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Continually add more collections
Become easier to use
Run harvesting on a more regular schedule
Add new services
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13. Possible new SMC services
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OAI Static Repository Gateway
Better metadata, including subject access
Harvest content in addition to metadata,
starting with thumbnails of covers
Downloadable records (MARC, MODS, DC,
etc.) to assist local cataloging
De-duplication of records
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14. For more information
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IN Harmony
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/projects/inharmony
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Sheet Music Consortium
http://digital.library.ucla.edu/sheetmusic/
These presentation slides
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/~jenlrile/presentations/mla2007/mla2007.ppt
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jenlrile@indiana.edu
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