Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart–MGG-Online by Herausgegeben von Laurenz Lütteken (review)

The launching of MGG-Onlinein November 2016 marked the triumphant end of a development process that had begun back in 2000 with the decision to create a digital platform for what is regarded by many scholars as the most important and ambitious musical encyclopedias ever created. The team that undertook this work faced a range of complex challenges. The extraordinary flexibility afforded by the latest digital technology allowed a radical reimagining of the entire information architecture of MGGand yet it was crucial to maintain a tangible connection, both visually and structurally, with the most recent printed edition of the work. Two fundamental areas needed to be addressed: one, at the authorial or editorial level, that enabled a constant process of revision to be undertaken with minimal disruption to the site; and the second, the interface for the user and in particular, the search mechanism. While the editorial flexibility of MGG-Onlineis not apparent to external users, the excellence of the user interface and flexibility of the search parameters suggest that it is likely to be equally good. There is one other outstanding feature that deserves mention in this context: searches may be made in German or English since the RILM equivalencies sit in the background while an in-built translation link enables the user to navigate the site and read articles in a raft of languages ranging from Afrikaans to Vietnamese. The machine translations, like all of their kind, are highly variable in style and accuracy but provide the non-German speaking reader with a reasonable sense of an article's contents and the German reader, so inclined, with a potentially rich source of amusement.

Arriving on the home page, the reader is struck by the clarity of the design and the clever way in which the strengths of the database are immediately yet unobtrusively displayed. A simple search text box can be found to the right of the screen beneath which is a brief description of MGG:

Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart( MGG) is a general encyclopedia of music. MGGis encyclopedic in the true sense of that term: it offers in-depth articles on every aspect of music as well as many related areas such as literature, philosophy, and visual arts. MGG Onlinecontains the second print edition of MGG, published from 1994 to 2008, as well as current, continuous online updates and additions.

Four standing items occupy the remainder of the home page: Recently Updated Articles [these are described variously as major updates or minor revisions and are dated], Article of the Day, This Day in History, and Featured Article. In the listed articles, a hyperlink takes the reader directly to the selected article. These four sections serve not only to engage the interest of the visitor to the site and demonstrate the breadth of scholarship that is to be found in MGG-Online, but more importantly, they illustrate the fundamental principle that underpins the venture: that MGGis in a state of constant evolution as it updates, revises, replaces, and commissions new articles as new scholarship emerges.

At the foot of the home page, the user is invited to watch the launch of MGG-Onlineat the American Musicological Society (AMS) Conference in Vancouver in November 2016. Video clips of presentations by Laurenz Lütteken, Editor-in-Chief of MGG-Online, and Jonathan Greenberg, Product Development Coordinator, are particularly interesting since they discuss both the evolution of the digital project and give a brief demonstration of some of the features of MGG-Online.

Returning to the top of the home page, the Browse button to the left of the Search box allows the user to search by Article Titles, Authors, and Occupations. Article Titles may then be filtered by Person...