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05/18/09
In November 2008, the Library of Congress Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate approved a Timeline and Plan for the Next Five Library of Congress Genre/Form Projects. In accordance with that timeline, the Policy and Standards Division (PSD) will develop a genre/form thesaurus in cooperation with the LC’s Music Division and other interested groups. PSD is now in the initial stages of developing the music component of that thesaurus, namely, the terms for musical works.
There are thousands of headings in the area of music that are currently coded as topical subject headings (MARC 21 tag 150) that are actually terms for what musical works are: forms, genres, types, styles, etc. As such, these terms would be more accurately encoded in tag 155, the field defined for genre/form terms. However, it is apparent that merely creating genre/form authority records using headings as they exist today would not be the best way to serve the user. Reasons to change these headings include the complexity of the existing heading structure and the fact that the present structure conflates genre/form terms with medium of performance. We believe there are better means to use our controlled vocabulary to promote discovery of musical works.
In conjunction with the genre/form thesaurus, PSD recognizes that for musical works there also needs to be a companion list of medium of performance terms, so that users will be able to search directly by form, style, or genre of music as well as by medium of performance. So, as initial steps, PSD has begun to compile two lists. The first contains candidate genre/form terms based on Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), and is intended to open a discussion about the vocabulary in such a genre/form list, the semantic relationships among the genre/form terms, and the syntax of the headings that will embody the terms. The second list, also based on LCSH, is a working list of terms representing medium of performance, which is an essential component of the information provided in most bibliographic records for musical works.
During the period from March 26, 2009 through July 31, 2009, PSD requests assistance from those with an interest in music genre/form headings and in terminology for medium of performance. We welcome:
- suggestions for additional genre/form and medium of performance terms;
- comments on the development of the thesaurus, including its vocabulary, its eventual syndetic structure, and the resulting MARC 21 authority records for authorized terms;
- comments on technical and implementation issues.
Members of the Music Library Association, as well as others who would like to participate in the MLA discussion of genre/form issues, should convey their comments to the MLA BCC Genre/Form Task Force, which has set up a wiki to facilitate discussion about the project. Discussion via this wiki will include:
- comments and questions about existing music genre/form and medium of performance vocabulary in LCSH;
- the specific LCSH vocabulary posted at the Library of Congress genre/form Web site (Candidate Genre/Form Terms; Working List of Terms Representing Medium of Performance);
- suggestions for additional terms in either category;
- comments on the music genre/form project in general.
Instructions for setting up a pbworks account and leaving comments can be found at: http://musicgenrepublicforum.pbworks.com/How to leave comments and use pbworks.
To comment directly to the Library of Congress Policy and Standards Division about the music genre/form project, please write to Geraldine Ostrove (gost@loc.gov) with a copy to Janis Young (jayo@loc.gov).
General questions and comments regarding the genre/form projects may be directed to Janis Young.