More than a Melody: Poster Session Abstract

Presented by: Garth L. Tardy, Library Information Specialist II, Univeristy of Missouri-Kansas City

Many libraries are now beginning to provice access to their sheet music collections. Sheet music contains so much more besides the song itself, namely the artwork of its covers. There is much to interest researchers across a broad spectrum of disciplines, from history to fashion to anthropology that the cataloger needs to be willing to consider more than just the musical aspects of the piece.

What the artwork says is often just as important to researchers and that non-verbal information can and should be incorporated in the bibliographic record. Sheet music often depicts local scenes or events, history, examples of race relations and images and much more that is of interest to researchers in history, cultural studies and the graphic arts. A cataloger can make great use of a good 500 note describing the images, the LCSH free floating subdivision $v Pictorial works, $v Portraits or $v Caricatures and cartoons to bring out these elements for researchers.

These subject headings would be in addition to the ones added to describe the music itself. The time it takes is surprising little as many will be of simple nouns. The subject headings that will take the most time are ones dealing with local subjects, but those will yield the greatest value.

Sheet music really is more than just a single song. Cover art is a reflection of the history, attitudes and concerns of the times in a visual form. This poster session will demonstrate how the music cataloger can effectively provide graphical subject analysis to fully present this non-verbal information to researchers across multiple academic disciplines.

Follow the link below to see examples of how this cataloging might be done.

Poster session graphics