Music Discovery Requirements: A Guide to Optimizing Resources

Abstract

Music materials, particularly scores and recordings, pose unique demands that must be considered for their successful discovery. Some of the discoverability challenges of music materials in public search interfaces can be addressed simply by ensuring that needed bibliographic description fields are appropriately displayed and indexed in discovery interfaces. Other problems are more difficult to solve. This Music Discovery Requirements document explores the issues and gives concrete recommendations for discovery interfaces. Given that most libraries will be dealing with databases containing large bodies of legacy data recorded according to AACR2 and encoded in MARC, particular attention is paid to MARC data and to AACR2; RDA is addressed to the extent possible. The discussions and recommendations will be useful to those creating or guiding the development of discovery interfaces that will facilitate access to music materials. Furthermore, because the document identifies areas where deficient data creates particular problems for discovery, those inputting or creating standards for data can use this document to identify areas with particular needs for fuller, more consistent data.

Open Access/Copyright Notice: This publication first appeared in Notes 69, no. 3 (March 2013): 494-524. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/not.2013.0017 This material may not be copied or reposted without explicit permission. Copyright 2013, Nara L. Newcomer, Rebecca Belford, Deb Kulczak, and Kimmy Szeto with Jennifer Matthews, Misti Shaw.

This open access posting includes three spreadsheet appendices which were not published in Notes.

Another version of this article (including the spreadsheet appendices, and in-text lists of fields and other metadata specifications) appeared on the Music Discovery Resources section of the Music Library Association website. Future updates will be posted to the Music Library Association website. http://www.musiclibraryassoc.org