GENERAL STATEMENT

A. PATRONS & SERVICES

The Walter W. Gerboth Music Library acquires and houses print and non-print materials, in a multiplicity of formats and media, relevant to the study and performance of music and dance. The collection exists primarily to meet the teaching, performance and research needs of faculty, students, administrators and staff on campus. From teachers of pre-schoolers enrolled in the Prep Center, to retirees belonging to IRPE, patron ages encompass a life-span.

The Conservatory of Music offers the following degrees: BA in music, BM in composition, BM in performance, MA in musicology, MA in performance practice, MA in Education (music teacher, k-12), MM in composition and MM in performance. There is a new undergraduate degree in music education that is about to be approved. A certificate program in "Performance and Interactive Media Arts" is being developed. All of these programs are highly dependent on library support. Music scores, unlike general library books, are acquired from specialized distributors most library patrons do not have access to. Scores tend to be expensive and often imported from Europe. For these reasons the Music Library's function as collector and repository of such material makes it a place cherished by music students and faculty.

Students and faculty of the music program at the CUNY Graduate Center are heavy users, both in person and via interlibrary loan, of the Brooklyn College Music Library as are music scholars and performers unaffiliated with CUNY but aware of the Library's unique holdings.

FUNDING

Regular funding for Music Library materials is available through state-levied monies, part of the Brooklyn College Library's annual budget. State grants and interest on the "Music Library Gift Fund" provide additional financing. The Conservatory of Music faculty have approved use of interest from its "Walter W. Gerboth Library Fund" for occasional purchase of expensive reference book sets and to maintain periodical subscriptions that would otherwise be cut.

GENERAL APPROACH TO MATERIALS SELECTION

A. Acquisitions Strategy:

Knowing what is new, reprinted and best is a full-time job. Deciding which editions of music scores and which performances on sound- and video-recordings are to be ordered is extraordinarily time-consuming because attention must be paid to the comparative merits of the numerous editions and versions of the same work. A standard chamber music work or opera vocal score, for example, might be published by five different publishers and there might be fifteen different recordings currently available for each work. Choosing which, among the myriad offerings, are to be purchased is based primarily on the Music Librarian's awareness of which are textually the "best" and which will survive the typical wear and tear--quite beyond what books in the general collection suffer. Music students "use" music library materials in ways no other library materials are used. Music scores are frequently heavily marked with fingerings and performance cues, then erased, and they have to withstand being opened up to lie flat on a music stand. Furthermore, wear and tear on "performing editions"--scores with parts--can be intense because they are used by multiple patrons simultaneously. A piano quintet, consisting of score and four string parts, is used by five different patrons at the same time.

Specialized music journals--for performers, scholars and librarians--are excellent sources of reviews of scores, books, electronic products and sound- and video- recordings. For mainstream publications, newspaper reviews, especially in the New York Times and the Daily News, are consulted. Current music publishers catalogs, as well as antiquarian dealers catalogs, are frequently scanned for ordering ideas. The Music Librarian maintains a large, up-to-date file of hundreds of such catalogs. Library of Congress proof slips are also checked to keep abreast of new publications.

The Music Librarian depends on suggestions from campus faculty and students and looks forward to attending to Conservatory faculty meetings each year to discuss acquisitions. The Music Librarian monitors the Music Library Associations electronic newsgroup postings every day to keep in touch with all matters, including collection development issues.

B. Level of Difficulty

Most of the material acquired is of college-level difficulty. There is a need, however, for easier reading material that is suitable for adults enrolled in college programs whose reading skills are nevertheless not up to the standard college level. With the expansion of enrollment in the College's Prep Center, a community outreach program of performance education, materials suitable for teachers of very young children are purchased.

C. Languages:

English-language material is strongly emphasized, but a collection that aspires to support the research needs of the College's faculty and graduate students must include important resources in the major European languages.

D. Geographic Areas:

With the implementation of a Conservatory requirement that music majors take an American or World music course, it behooves the Library to acquire materials about music and dance in all geographic areas.

E. Current and Retrospective Purchases:

Current publishing activity is closely monitored by reviews, advertisements and communication with music faculty and music librarians--current materials accounting for approximately half of what is purchased. Duplicate ordering, especially of music scores--many of which never go out of print--accounts for the rest of the purchases. There is also a serious attempt to locate a small number of out-of-print titles, especially scores which, for copyright reasons, are otherwise unavailable.

F. Format of Materials Collected/Excluded:

Print and non-print materials are ordered. Sound-recordings (compact discs), video-recordings (VHS format) and CD-ROMs are the preferred formats purchased. Long-playing sound-recordings, a significant part of the audio collection and heavily used by music faculty for classroom teaching and by students for listening assignments, are acquired through donation.

Serials, particularly "monumental editions" (critical, scholarly editions) and composers' "complete works editions" are the heart of the score collection, often the only editions requested by faculty. Subscriptions to these largely European publications are expensive but essential.

Periodical subscriptions, mercilessly slashed in the past ten years of budget cuts, are equally important to maintain. Music journals have been slow to appear in electronic journal collections but as they become available decisions will have to be made about canceling paper subscriptions. It should be emphasized though that music faculty have communicated their preference for print materials as a rule over electronic ones.

As digitized music scores become available, as long as copyright issues are cleared--this is a murky issue right now--decisions will have to be made about their purchase.

G. Reference Policy:

Not only are the usual kinds of reference books collected (including discographies and thematic indexes), but an attempt is made to acquire music/museum exhibition catalogs and a small selection of titles in subject areas other than the usual music classifications of "ML" and "MT,"such as in religion, folklore, art, culture, research techniques, grants and audio/computer technology.

Music scores published in series--those cited in the previous section of this statement--are generally classed in the music reference score collection and take up more than twice the space of the reference book collection.

All formats are considered including print, online, CD-ROM and microform.

H. DUPLICATION:

Multiple score copies must be ordered for the standard repertoire--both for performance and study purposes. Some kinds of music, e.g. duos, must be ordered in duplicate so that there are scores for both players.

Books are generally ordered in single copies, although exceptions are made for important, reasonably priced titles.

I. Weeding Policy:

Heavy use of the collection, as well as the burgeoning output of music publishing and sound-recording industries, makes frequent, often daily, weeding a necessity. In addition, two sections of the collection are inventoried each academic year. Not only does that activity result in systematic weeding at the same time, relieving crowded shelves, but it also is required because a large percentage of scores and sound recordings (unlike books) consist of multiple parts that must be collated, and if found to be missing, must be so noted or discarded.

Every music score, whether purchased or acquired through donation, must be commercially bound. There are many decisions that must be made by the music librarian, based on her knowledge of how the score is used, before materials can be bound. Preparing materials for the bindery is a time-consuming task, but one that results in materials that will stand up to long-term use. Binding music is very expensive but absolutely necessary.

J. Gifts

Donations of music books, scores and sound-recordings are actively solicited by the Music Librarian to supplement the materials budget, which has steadily declined in the last ten years. Brooklyn is home to an extraordinary community of retired music teachers and performers, both professional and amateur, whose generosity to the Brooklyn College Music Library has resulted in a greatly expanded collection.

K. SELECTION ACTIVITY PROBLEMS

Although the Music Librarian initiates most orders, it is imperative that the College faculty be encouraged to share its expertises, thus ensuring a collection that represents a balance of theoretical and practical, performance and musicological, traditional and avant-garde, Western and non-Western materials.

It is the Music Librarian, though, whose decision is final in matters of collection development.

L. COMMENTS

The Music Librarian's challenge is to be both imaginative and disciplined, to build and preserve a collection of music and dance materials that strongly represent the riches of those arts, in spite of the inevitable budgetary constraints.

Updated: April 1,2001
Prof. Honora Raphael