Bibliographic Control of Music, 1897–2000 (review)

This book is a must-read for music catalogers (novice or veteran) and a should-read for music librarians not directly involved with cataloging. Richard Smiraglia, a well-respected and beloved name among music catalogers, with J. Bradford Young, has published yet another helpful resource for this group. A number of Smiraglia's former publications are treasured for their assistance in the daily details of cataloging practice, such as, Music Cataloging: The Bibliographic Control of Printed and Recorded Music in Libraries (Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1989) and Describing Music Materials : A Manual for Descriptive Cataloging of Printed and Recorded Music, Music Videos, and Archival Music Collections, for Use with AACR2 and APPM (Lake Crystal, MN: Soldier Creek Press, 1997). This book under review has a different focus, which is to fill a gap in the literature "to support historical and theoretical research into the organization of music in libraries" (p. 1).

Smiraglia begins by recounting an interesting story of how this book came into existence. He explains that the research for this project began in 1983 in two segments of concentrated research with the aid of two sets of graduate assistants based at two different universities (he names Young as a motivator for the second segment of research). Smiraglia's story flows into an introduction explaining the purpose of this book and the research methodology. He lists the titles of print and online sources consulted along with search terms used to gather entries for the bibliography. The coverage, in Smiraglia's words, is "comprehensive ... not exhaustive" (p. 1).

Smiraglia and Young convey their general editorial practices and give instructions for using the chronological listing in conjunction with the four indexes in a concise and clear fashion. Concerning the editorial practices, they state, "Translations of foreign-language titles found in the source of the citations have been recorded as notes; for others, a translation has been provided by the editor" (p. 3). To clarify, translations exist for many but not for all such titles. On a positive note, this indicates the international scope of the bibliography. Additionally, while they state that the author index is "based on the first author listed in joint-authorship works" (p. 3), it does, in actuality, index all authors. The ensuing sections contain an essay entitled, "From James Duff Brown (1897) to Arsen Ralph Papakhian (2000): An Essay on the Literature of the Bibliographic Control of Music" followed by a chronological listing with full citations accompanied by title, author, keyword, and journal title indexes.

From an educational perspective, the essay commenting on the bibliographic entries is worth its weight in gold as a study of the history of professional music cataloging from its infancy through the digital age. It is an essential educational tool for up-and-coming music catalogers and music librarians of any specialty in any type of library. Smiraglia points to three key issues that are a common thread in this historical overview: definition and transcription of works, subject access, and classification. Smiraglia reminds us that music catalogers in all types of libraries have been tackling these same three issues in an evolving manner over the past century. At times, they are seemingly ignorant of previous publications. Consequently, this publication also serves to provide a centralized gathering of literature to curb the "repeated revisiting of issues settled in earlier generations" (p. 8). These issues and the literature are important for music librarians to be better equipped to analyze and solve present day problems and to grasp pressing developments such as FRBR and RDA by putting them in a historical context.

The valuable bibliography will no doubt be used, and should be used, in numerous other ways, such as compiling resources for instruction in cataloging courses or discovering gaps to fill in the literature. In the essay, Smiraglia mentions citation analysis and deeper research as hopeful uses of this work. Working...