The British Catalogue of Music: Inclusion PolicyAuthor(s): Patrick MillsSource: Fontes Artis Musicae, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Januar-März 1986), pp. 28-29Published by: International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres(IAML)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23507541 .

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28 Subject Commissions and Project Groups

The British Catalogue of Music: Inclusion Policy Patrick Mills (London)

The aim of a national music bibliography seems to me to be comparatively straightfor ward. It is to represent the culture of the country concerned, in terms of scores composed,

published (or available for hire in that country); settings of songs in the language of that

country, and also music based 011 themes relating to that country. On the other hand, the

priority of a bibliography based on the holdings of a copyright library is to inform librarians what is available in a country, irrespective of its origins. Obviously, these two kinds of

bibliographies have a lot in common, but perhaps some of the differences will emerge in the

course of this paper. The British Catalogue of Music was established in 1957 to do for music what had been

done for monographs by the British National Bibliography since 1950. Its aims were stated in

a preface (and I quote) "... a record of music - with the exception of modern dance music

and certain other types of popular music - published during any year". In addition, it

recorded music issued by non-British publishers who issued music through a sole agent, and

was also received under the terms of our Copyright Acts.

I ought to explain that, at that time and until 1974 the British National Bibliography under

whose aegis BCM was produced, was an independent commercial organisation, and was

greatly indebted to the Music Department of the British Museum for providing the basis of

the catalogue. The significance of this lay in the fact that, in practice, what we included or

excluded was decided by the Music Department of the British Museum. We nevertheless had

no desire to argue against excluding "modern dance music" (whatever that might have been) and certain "other types of popular music". At the end of the 1950s, you would not expect to

find articles on pop music written in serious newspapers; the enthusiasms of the majority of

the populace were not apparently shared by prospective purchases of BCM. We believed

that librarians would be reluctant to buy music that was likely to be forgotten in two or three

months, and in any case details of such music were available in the Melody Maker magazine. Albums of pop music, on the other hand, were included on the apparent grounds that those

singers whom publishers thought worthy of an album were likely to be of some permanent

significance. As the years went by, the policy of excluding pop music came under increasing attack.

Times were changing; the sociological import of pop music was widely perceived, and

conferences of IAML (UK) gave a hot reception to a policy of the exclusion of pop music, and so from 1978 BCM included this type of music. It is still possible, however, to say that

BCM remains a little untypical of music bibliographies in this respect, and if the volume of

music publishing in general was to substantially increase, we might have to reconsider our

policy towards pop music if our resources were unequal to the task.

The policy of producing entries for all music deposited at the Copyright Office was by no

means foolproof, for a number of reasons. Agents of non-British publishers had no uniform

policy in whether they deposited at the Copyright Office or not, and the origins of non

British publications appearing in BCM showed a marked bias towards German and Italian

publications, largely because one of the main agents for French music was not very enthusiastic in depositing these publications, not even for the free publicity. As a first step towards making our coverage more consistent, the decision was made to record in BCM all

foreign music purchased by the Music Library. This, however, was not a perfect answer, since, generally, the Music Library's purchases consisted of collected editions and various musical monuments, which was more of a help to music reference libraries than to libraries

concerned with practical music making. We are hoping therefore, as an experiment, to include the purchases of the Lending Division of the British Library.

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Subject Commissions and Project Groups 29

The advantages of including purchases of the Lending Division require an explanation.

Many of their purchases are naturally of British publications already appearing in BCM. But

like the Reference Division, a considerable amount of non-British publications are

purchased, not only of collected editions but a tremendous amount of smaller publications with a clear bias towards practical musical performance. If our resources can be made equal to our aspirations, and the inclusion of Lending Division acquisitions becomes a reality, the

user of BCM will be given an unprecedented vista of published music available at home and

abroad. I am, none the less, inclined to the personal view that this will have to wait until we

have produced BCM in larger cumulations, which will require a great deal of editorial work.

(But that is another story.) We are also aware that a great deal of music which we hear performed is not subject to any

kind of bibliographic control. This is because the scores are only available for hire, and are

therefore not deposited nor are we able to purchase them. A number of composers are

probably more interested in performances than in being published, and so these works are

not likely to be encountered in a national library catalogue. We are therefore hoping to

interest publishers in the idea of voluntarily depositing microfilms of their hire scores so that

we can provide a more detailed bibliographic control of music performed in our country. The British Catalogue of Music is not, and never has been, merely a catalogue of British

music, but rather a music catalogue which happens to be British. More than one music

librarian has asked me over the years why it contains so much music of non-British

provenance. Ought this not to be left to the individual national bibliographies of the

countries concerned? My answer is that we have something of a responsibility to respond, as

best we can, to the needs of the British music librarian. The British Library is one of the

great libraries of the world, and the enormous coverage of its music holdings may be seen in

CPM (the Catalogue of Printed Music). It would indeed be a paradox if we did not continue

to inform our librarians of the newer music contained in our library; a liberal inclusion policy for the British Catalogue of Music makes this possible.

Bibliographische Wege zum Musikschaffen und Musikdenken in der DDR

Wolfgang Ritschel (Dresden)

Trotz verschiedener Ansätze zu einer internationalen bibliographischen Erfassung von

Musikalien und Musikliteratur ist es für den Musikinteressenten wie für den Bibliothekar

immer noch mühevoll, sich einen genaueren Überblick über die musikalische Druckproduk

tion in einem anderen Land zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt zu verschaffen. Ich möchte

deshalb versuchen, den hier versammelten ausländischen Kollegen einen Überblick über die

bibliographischen Wege zur Musik der DDR zu geben, wobei ich über die eigentlichen Bibliographien hinaus einige weitere Informationsquellen benennen werde, die gelegentlich

nützliche Dienste leisten können.

Das gesamte Arsenal der Auskunftsmittel, das ich Ihnen vorzustellen habe, ist nicht

überwältigend groß. Aber indem ich Ihnen präzise angebe, welche bibliographischen

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