Online sheet music
Jenn Riley
Metadata Librarian
Indiana University
Some uses of digitized sheet music
Study
Musical content
Lyrics
Cover art
Ads
Performing
Locating physical collections for further
investigation
March 3, 2007 MLA/SAM 2007 2
Selecting sheet music for digitization
Can’t digitize everything
Can’t select at the item level
Libraries consider
current usage
relationship to other collections
notable collectors
significant parts of larger collections
local user needs
March 3, 2007 MLA/SAM 2007 3
But how to describe it?
Existing collections generally not described at
the item level
Most early online sheet music collections
used customized metadata models
Many similarities
Many differences
IU’s IN Harmony: Sheet Music from Indiana
project has attempted to build upon these
March 3, 2007 MLA/SAM 2007 4
IN Harmony metadata needs
Work for diverse project partners
Indiana University Lilly Library
Indiana State Library
Indiana State Museum
Indiana Historical Society
Facilitate interoperability
Effective user access
March 3, 2007 MLA/SAM 2007 5
IN Harmony user studies
Search logs
Card sort
Task scenario
Email content analysis
March 3, 2007 MLA/SAM 2007 6
IN Harmony categories
Title elements
Name elements
Publication elements
Subject elements
Identification elements
Note elements
Cover information
March 3, 2007 MLA/SAM 2007 7
IN Harmony subject elements
Topical subject
Name as subject
Form/genre
Instrumentation
Geographic subject
Language
Local subject
March 3, 2007 MLA/SAM 2007 8
Sources of online sheet music
Many, many individual sites
Sheet Music Collections, maintained by Lois
Schultz
Sheet Music Consortium
March 3, 2007 MLA/SAM 2007 9
Sheet Music Consortium overview
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
March 3, 2007 MLA/SAM 2007 10
SMC collections indexed
Library of Congress, Music Division 47,528 records
Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections 20,157 records
Library, Duke University
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
March 3, 2007 MLA/SAM 2007 11
Next steps for the SMC
Submitted proposal for a 1-year planning grant to
start October 2007
Will study user needs and data provider needs
Meeting in Bloomington Fall 2007
Meeting at MLA 2008
Long-term plan
Continually add more collections
Become easier to use
Run harvesting on a more regular schedule
Add new services
March 3, 2007 MLA/SAM 2007 12
Possible new SMC services
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
March 3, 2007 MLA/SAM 2007 13
For more information
IN Harmony
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/projects/inharmony
Sheet Music Consortium
http://digital.library.ucla.edu/sheetmusic/
These presentation slides
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/~jenlrile/presentations/mla2007/mla2007.ppt
jenlrile@indiana.edu
March 3, 2007 MLA/SAM 2007 14