Essential Partners in Collection Development: Vendors and Music Librarians

Essential Partners in Collection Development: Vendors and Music LibrariansAuthor(s): Daniel ZagerSource: Notes, Second Series, Vol. 63, No. 3 (Mar., 2007), pp. 565-575Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4487823 .

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ESSENTIAL PARTNERS IN COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT: VENDORS AND MUSIC

LIBRARIANS BY DANIEL ZAGER

The task of building music library collections necessarily involves the vendors who sell to our libraries the scores, books, journals (whether in printed or electronic formats), and recordings that enable the users of music libraries to make, study, and listen to a rich panoply of music in various styles and genres-without chronological or geographical limits. Imagine for the moment that a superior music library vendor abruptly and without warning decides that the time has come to close down, to dissolve the business. What does the music librarian lose? Clearly, one loses a business entity that can deliver the goods to libraries by way of firm orders, standing orders, subscriptions, or approval plans. That loss is obvious. What is perhaps less obvious is that the music librarian also stands to lose important services in terms of bibliographic information and notification of new publications, whether that information comes by way of printed notification slips, lists of new publications, catalogs, or by way of electronic files, an extensive and well-organized Web site, or even advertisements in a music journal such as Notes. Furthermore, vendors often send publisher catalogs and brochures as yet another means to no- tify librarians of new publications. If a vendor goes out of business the music librarian loses both goods and services-bibliographic services on which our collection development activities depend. After a general consideration of the selection process, this article focuses on the partnership between vendors and music librarians as seen in approval plans, and in vendor-supplied bibliographic information that serves as a complement to published reviews.

Daniel Zager is associate dean and head librarian, Sibley Music Library, and associate professor of musicology (part-time) at the Eastman School of Music. This article is a revised version of a paper presented at a plenary session ("Collection Development: Techniques, Resources, and Perspectives for the Music Librarian") during the 2006 annual meeting of the Music Library Association. I thank Sandra Lemmon, head of acquisitions and serials at Sibley Music Library, for helpful critical readings of both the paper and the article.

565



566 NOTES, March 2007

THE SELECTION PROCESS

Viewed objectively, the selection process entails myriad decisions evalu- ating the nature of published music materials in the context of a host of internal and external factors. External factors are those that reside outside the institution where the selector is working; internal factors refer to the institutional context and include most prominently: (1) the type of institution, (2) the nature of curricula or communities, and (3) matters of budget. Such internal and external factors make selection of materials a highly individual process that varies significantly from one institution to the next.

The type of institution to which a music library or music collection is attached varies considerably in the academic arena.1 At the risk of gener- alizing, it is still fair, I think, to distinguish among (1) the comprehensive school of music, (2) the conservatory, and (3) the department of music. The comprehensive school of music (for the most part a uniquely American phenomenon) includes the study of composition, performance, music education, music theory, and musicology within a single administrative entity, usually including the full range of undergraduate and graduate (masters and doctoral) degree programs. The conservatory of music most often emphasizes performance and composition, with a supporting role (rather than separate degree programs) for music the-

ory and musicology. The department of music is perhaps the most vari- able of the three types of institutions cited here, but most often the study of composition, music theory, and musicology are more prominent than is a full range of performance degree programs for all instruments, with faculty specialists for each performance area. Making music-whether in large ensembles, chamber music, or solo performance-is important in the department of music, but it is less of a focus in this context than in the conservatory or comprehensive school of music. Some of the strongest research programs in music theory and musicology are to be found in the department of music context.

These different types of music institutions will, of course, exhibit different emphases in their degree programs and curricula-internal factors that play an important role in the selection of music library materi-

1. Because my experience is limited to academic libraries I do not comment here on the varying institutional contexts for public libraries as factors in the selection process. But perhaps it is fair to say that just as there are different types of academic contexts for the teaching of music, so also there are varying contexts for music collection development in public libraries: the nature of the community or communities being served; prominent ethnicities and their musics; the nature of the library and/or library system -county-wide library system, metropolitan library, neighborhood branch, suburban library, and so on. For a recent consideration of music collections in public libraries see Linda B. Fairtile and Karen M. Burke, "Music Collections in American Public Libraries," Fontes Artis Musicae 48 (October-December 2001): 327-41.



Vendors and Music Librarians 567

als. What may be essential for a conservatory library, e.g., a broad range of orchestral excerpt books, may be of much less importance in a music

library serving a department of music focused on musicological and the- oretical work. Conversely, the musicological literature of medieval Latin chant-essential for a music library supporting graduate research in

musicology-may be covered in only a cursory fashion in the music li-

brary collection supporting a conservatory. In spite of such obvious differences, there are questions and consider-

ations that will be common to music librarians working in otherwise dis-

parate settings (such as conservatories, on the one hand, or departments of music, on the other). Such questions may include: (1) what musics are particularly studied and emphasized in a specific academic setting, (2) what are the prominent faculty research and/or performance interests, (3) what student research projects (undergraduate honors papers, graduate theses and dissertations) are currently underway, (4) are there

particularly active student or faculty chamber ensembles? Such questions are almost limitless but have in common the music librarian assessing local contexts (an internal factor) as a determinant for selection of materials.

Budgets for library materials are a third internal factor and vary widely based on the types of libraries enumerated above. It is not only a matter of the size of the budget in dollars; there are other pertinent considerations. What percentage of the budget is committed to serial subscriptions and standing orders? Are there separate allocations for scores, books, and recordings? If the music library is part of a larger library system are there separate library-wide allocations, e.g., for book approval plans, electronic resources, or rare books and expensive facsimiles, that effec-

tively supplement the funds dedicated to music collection development? Such internal factors have an effect on selection practices, and on ongo- ing development of the music materials budget.

External factors include trends in pricing of materials, foreign currency exchange rates (particularly in Western Europe), and how long materials remain in print. For example, the fact that we see scores staying in print longer than books (and more frequently reprinted and reissued than books) is an external factor that might affect selector behavior, prompt- ing the selector at times to privilege book selection over score selection.

All of these factors-internal and external-impinge on the selection

process; all of these factors come into play every time the music librarian reviews:

* vendor notification slips (whether received in paper form or electronically),

* a publisher's brochure or catalog,




* an advertisement in ajournal, * a reviewjournal such as Gramophone, * a "new arrivals" portion of a publisher or vendor Web site.

Selection is actually an incredibly intricate process. Think about what

goes on, for example, as a librarian sorts through a stack of notification

slips for newly published scores; one takes into consideration at least the

following:

* composer * genre and work * instrumentation * edition (or arrangement) * editor and reputation * publisher and reputation * series * date (new or reprint?) * type of score

- full score - study score - vocal score/piano reduction

* cost * competing versions by other editors and publishers

While considering all of the above factors-any one of which could

prompt a decision for or against purchase-one is simultaneously mea- suring each score against the internal and external factors just enumerated. Internal considerations, for example, would question whether a

given score fits well into a specific institutional context. What is essential for a heavily performance-oriented context may be of secondary interest to a department of music primarily invested in research. Both contexts

might require the score of a newly composed woodwind quintet by a

prominent living composer, but the same may not be true for the set of

parts. External considerations such as the cost of an item and the current

exchange rate may, for some libraries, simply rule out purchase of a score that would otherwise be a highly desirable and appropriate addi- tion to a collection.

The point of this discussion is not to belabor the obvious, but rather to underscore the highly individual nature of the selection process, as well as the complexity of this process, which involves myriad decisions evalu-

ating the nature of published music materials-all considered in the context of various internal and external factors. In order to build appropriate and responsive collections, music librarians consistently apply




their well-developed musical backgrounds and understanding in the context of such factors as curricula, communities, and cost.

APPROVAL PLANS

The topic of approval plans often engenders spirited discussion

among music librarians. Some have no interest in using approval plans, preferring to rely on firm orders with some use of standing orders. Other music librarians find approval plans, for books and/or scores, to be quite helpful. The approval plan as a collection development tech-

nique is a good illustration of the premise articulated above that "selection of materials [is] a highly individual process that varies significantly from one institution to the next," for, the smaller the materials budget (an internal factor), the less plausible is the use of approval plans.

Many music librarians in academic libraries of various sizes have bene- fited from book approval plans that have been designed for a larger li-

brary system in which the music library is but one component. A possible budgetary advantage of such an approval plan is that the music books ar-

riving on the plan may not be charged to a music library budget but rather to a centralized approval plan budget. Thus, university press books on music, for example, may arrive automatically on such a plan. Since the publisher profile for such a library-wide monographic approval plan is set up centrally, trade publishers particularly important in music

may or may not be included. One can either advocate for their inclusion on the profile, or simply firm-order those titles from slip coverage. But on balance this kind of book approval plan often works well for bringing in a preponderance of monographs that otherwise would have been firm-ordered. One could conceptualize such an approval plan as a series of standing orders by publisher, a plan that saves the music librarian and the acquisitions operation a significant amount of work.

An important caveat about monographic approval plans relates to the

increasingly interdisciplinary nature of music research and writing. If a

monographic approval plan is, for example, profiled to bring in only books classed in Library of Congress classes ML and MT, a number of

significant musicological volumes will not arrive automatically on the

plan, i.e., those books that, due to their interdisciplinary approach, are classed in various areas of history, literature, philosophy, or religion. The music librarian may be able to adjust the approval plan to capture these volumes, but it is also possible that such volumes will be "caught" only through awareness of this circumstance and concomitant attention to book reviews and listings of new publications.

If such book approval plans are fairly common and work reasonably well for many music librarians, the same generalizations are probably not




true for score approval plans. It is precisely in this area that lively discus- sions among music librarians are common. For example, a 2005 issue of the MLA Newsletter reported on a roundtable discussion that included the

topic of approval plans; the conclusion was that "Few libraries use them." One school's score approval plan was pronounced "a disaster"; by contrast, another library noted a good experience with a score approval plan. Yet another school noted that its book approval plan "has been in-

cluding too many popular titles [with the result that] they've been reject- ing more [books] than they accept." The report concluded that "because music is so idiosyncratic, libraries prefer to micromanage their collections. ... ."2 Such a report prompts the question: under what circum- stances might an approval plan work well? Here are three thoughts.

First, an approval plan should provide the selector assistance in bringing in classes of materials that would befirm-ordered anyway. Generally such classes of materials are defined by publisher (applicable to books or scores) or by composer (a common way to define score approval plans).

Second, approval plans work best when there is an exceptionally high level of predictability engendered by the approval plan profiles. Such a

high level of predictability is the means by which the selector is aided in his or her collection development work. That predictability can also be

helpful to the people who make use of a given music library. For example, when music faculty members know that books by certain publishers will arrive automatically or scores by certain composers are collected ex-

haustively they are helped in their work, and they will not spend their time in annotating university press music book catalogs, or wondering whether they should request that recent score by Osvaldo Golijov or

Libby Larsen. Third, for an approval plan to be an effective technique in the overall

collection development program the plan must not diminish the discre-

tionary portion of the materials budget unduly. If the discretionary portion of a materials budget is smaller than what is being spent on approval plan(s), then one's ability to build collections sensitive to the internal factors discussed earlier is likely to be severely compromised. The smaller the music library materials budget the less likely that approval plans will be appropriate or useful.

With respect to score approval plans, imagine that a music librarian

manages a materials budget allowing for at least a couple thousand dollars a year to be set aside for a scores plan. How might the profile of a scores approval plan be set up? Probably the most common score ap-

2. "Conservatory Libraries Roundtable," reported by Richard Vallone, MLA Newsletter 141 (May-June 2005): 18.




proval plans are those set up on the basis of twentieth- and twenty-first- century composers. Such a plan is straightforward and utterly predictable -one chooses the composers to be covered and specifies other factors, such as:

* maximum cost of an individual score, * countries of publication, * types of publication (e.g., accept or exclude arrangements, excerpts

from larger works, choral octavos, etc.), * instruments acceptable for solo compositions (e.g., accept or ex-

clude music for such instruments as carillon or accordion), * chamber music (specify score and parts, or perhaps score only), * orchestral music (specify study score, full score, piano reduction for

concertos), * vocal music and opera (specify study score, full score, vocal score).

One can also convey to a vendor an annual spending limit for a score approval plan profile. Having established the profile, one needs at least a

year to adjust it-making certain that it is sufficiently predictable, accom-

plishing what had been hoped, as well as being fiscally acceptable within the overall materials budget. Furthermore, one is always assessing such a

profile with respect to adding composers who are emerging on the con-

temporary music scene, and adding composers who have become important within the communities served by an individual library (e.g., new

performing or research interests on the part of faculty or students at one's own institution). Conversely, one may take composers off the profile as one makes various additions; such an action is usually less an aes- thetic judgment than a financial one, designed to maintain approval plan funding in balance with the overall budget so that the discretionary portion of the budget remains viable.

How does one update an approval plan composer profile to take account of the current scene? Talking with faculty colleagues, reading the New York Times, reading daily e-mail posts from the American Symphony Orchestra League, tracking Pulitzer and Grawemeyer prize winners, reading recordings reviews, and keeping up with a broad spectrum of music journals and newsletters will all prove helpful. By such means I be- came acquainted with names such as Jennifer Higdon and Jonathan Dove, to name only two composers added to my approval plan profiles within the past several years. Of course, one's own listening and concert attendance plays a role as well. Hearing the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra perform a work by Michael Hersch placed that composer firmly on my radar screen. Within the time of preparing this article the name of composer Kevin Puts came across my desk twice in one week: a




faculty colleague donated scores by Puts and described him as an important emerging composer. Then just two days later an e-mail post from the American Symphony Orchestra League listed him as one of nine

composers selected to participate in the Magnum Opus project in the San Francisco Bay area.3 With composers like Michael Hersch and Kevin Puts the next step is to check their Web sites to see if they have publishers;4 if yes, I would add those composers to the approval plan profile. If not yet, I would keep watching for the day when either they have publishers or they make their works available for sale through their own ef- forts. Of course, there are a host of ways one tries to keep up-to-date with

contemporary music: some music librarians find reading the Village Voice to be helpful; others monitor various newspapers as well as online newsletters issued by composer societies and arts organizations. The

point, however, is that a composer-based approval plan is a dynamic tool for collection development; the composer profile is always changing and can never be considered a completed project.

What about older repertories? How does a score approval plan bring in music other than the music of twentieth- and twenty-first-century com-

posers? Given the need for a high level of predictability in the materials received on approval, a reasonable solution is a publisher-based approval plan. For example, an approval plan might bring in all scores published by Henle Verlag-not because Henle scores are stellar examples of critical editions but simply because they are widely used by performers. Other publishers that I have profiled for coverage include Barenreiter

(specifically their offprints from critical editions), Amadeus, Antico Editions, London Pro Musica, Minkoff, Musica Rara, and the Italian fac- simile publisher Studio per Edizioni Scelte (SPES). Specific publishers aside, the point is that a publisher-based component to a score approval plan can be a useful tool for bringing in scores outside of a contemporary composer plan.

To summarize these thoughts on approval plans: what is received is controlled by the music librarian who creates profiles of composers and

publishers based in part on the internal factors discussed above; it is not the case that the vendor selects items in the vague hope that the music librarian will like and approve of his selections on behalf of a given library. Thus, approval plans can be conceptualized as a series of standing orders

by composer or publisher. Approval plans can be useful tools in collec-

3. http://www.meetthecomposer.org/magnumopus.htm (this and other Web pages cited in this article accessed 22 November 2006).

4. http://www.michaelhersch.com; http://www.kevinputs.com.




tion development to the extent that they are highly predictable, and to the extent that funding for the plan or plans does not diminish too

greatly the discretionary portion of the materials budget.

SELECTION FROM VENDOR-SUPPLIED BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

Reading reviews of books and scores in journals such as Notes or Music & Letters can be a helpful way for librarians to evaluate whether they wish to select particular books and scores for their collections. The same is true for recordings-reviews in Gramophone, American Record Guide, and

Fanfare are quite helpful. By contrast, selecting materials from vendor-

supplied lists and citations means working from minimal information. The obvious advantage, however, is that in many cases one works from more current information than can possibly be found in review sources-

particularly reviews of books and scores, reviews that take a good deal of time to commission, write, edit, and publish. Moreover, many scores and books are never reviewed. Thus, librarians rely very much on biblio-

graphic information from vendors to build collections-not only in a

timely way but in a way that takes into account the broadest spectrum of

newly published materials. Vendor-supplied bibliographic citations for

newly published scores, recordings, and books complement and supplement published reviews. I wish to explore here just briefly-using recordings and scores as examples-how one can use often minimal (even cryptic) bibliographic data to make selections for a music library collection.

In the area of recordings collection development I particularly value

Gramophone for reviews that assist me in selecting materials for the heart of the Western art music repertory. Vendor lists complement and supplement this review source by pointing me toward a variety of new record-

ings, some of which will not be reviewed in Gramophone (or, perhaps, any- where else). As I work through the minimal data on a vendor list I pay particular attention to labels and names of performers and composers- these are the clues that enable such minimal, cryptic data to assist the selector. Here are seven examples that caught my eye in a January 2006 vendor list:

(1) two CDs from Albany Records, one featuring a local performer (Eastman Wind Ensemble conductor Mark Scatterday), the other a local composer (the late Rochester-based composer David Diamond);

(2) an Archiv recording featuring a performer (Paul McCreesh) whose work I particularly value and whose recordings I always add to the collection;




(3) any composer included on one of the score approval plans (Stephen Paulus on two Arsis recordings);

(4) a particularly important instrument (the new Dobson organ in the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, on a Delos recording);

(5) under-recorded repertory (piano trios of Johann Nepomuk Hummel on Warner Classics);

(6) a consistently interesting label for twentieth-century music (two recordings on the Wergo label, with music of Hindemith and Berio);

(7) a collection of recording sessions by an important jazz figure (Miles Davis, his Cellar Door Sessions from 1970 on a Sony recording).

Thus, I select these recordings for the collection simply on the basis of

names-performers, composers, instrument builders, recording labels- without any critical sense of the quality of the performances or the recorded sound.

A similar process comes into play when working through vendor notification slips or lists in the area of scores. One looks for clues partly by paying attention to the names of editors and publishers. For example, a multivolume series of orchestral excerpts for trumpet bore the name of Hickman Music Editions as publisher. From years of doing collection

development-in part by regularly browsing all of the journals for the various instruments-I recognized that this series was likely the work of the well-known trumpet performer and pedagogue David Hickman.

Having confirmed that fact by checking the publisher's Web site,5 I selected these volumes for searching and ordering-simply on the basis of a name, without a recommendation from a review, really not knowing for certain if these items were well done. Of course, in a comprehensive school of music (there is an internal factor at work) one cannot have too

many excerpt books. So we ordered the volumes in September 2005 and received them in October. A review in the January 2006 ITG [Inter- national Trumpet Guild] Journal confirmed their usefulness by calling these volumes "the new standard series of excerpts," and noting that "Professor Hickman and his students rehearsed and studied the excerpts for several years before their release, resulting in unprecedented accuracy."6

5. http://hickmanmusiceditions.com/about.asp. 6. Luis C. Engelke, review of Essential Orchestral Excerpts for Trumpet, vols. 1-11, ed. Jean-Christoph

Dobrzelewski, in ITGJournal 30 (January 2006): 68.




These few examples will suffice in demonstrating collection development decisions made on the basis of vendor-supplied citations. In a sense, one takes certain risks when ordering on the basis of citations alone; the trick, of course, is-as much as possible-to minimize those risks through informed decisions. Such informed decisions in music collection development are anchored in the willingness to engage various corners of the larger musical world over the course of a career as a music librarian. That requirement-indeed that privilege-is one factor that makes collection development work so very special and continually re-

warding on both musical and intellectual levels. In sum, music librarians may tend to evaluate their partnerships with

vendors primarily on the basis of response time and fill rate. These factors are indeed critical, and the faster and more completely a vendor can fill an order the better for the users of a music library. But another critical part of vendor performance is providing the music librarian the broadest possible coverage of new publications-whether scores, record-

ings, or books-through electronic and printed media. Only a fraction of newly published materials will receive thoughtful, critical reviews, but all of these new publications should be available for consideration in the selection process. Vendors who assist music librarians in identifying the full range of new music publications are truly our essential partners in the collection development enterprise.

II-e- PP

_ I

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Essential Partners in Collection Development: Vendors and Music Librarians