About the Project
  The Sheet Music Consortium is a group of libraries working toward the goal of building an open collection of digitized sheet music using the Open Archives Initiative:Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI:PMH).

Harvested metadata about sheet music in participating collections is hosted by UCLA Digital Library Program, which provides an access service via this metadata to sheet music records at the host libraries. For technical details of the harvesting process and service, consult the Project Timeline and Technical Overview. Member institutions and data providers have chosen to catalog their sheet music in different ways, but a very large proportion of the original sheets in participating collections has been digitized, allowing users direct access to the music itself and — in many cases — covers and advertisements that offer evidence of the cultural context in which the songs were published.

For a definition of sheet music and a review of other sheet music digitization projects, consult the sheet music on the web section.

The Sheet Music Consortium welcomes participation from curators of collections of sheet music, whether in the US or other countries. Inquiries should be addressed to Stephen Davison, chair of the project team.

 
  Project Staff
 
Steering Committee
Stephen Davison, Music Librarian for Special Collections, UCLA (Chair)
Stephen H. Schwartz, Head of Library Information Systems Development, UCLA
Kristine R. Brancolini, Director, Digital Library Program, Indiana University
Cynthia Requardt, Kurrelmeyer Curator of Special Collections, Johns Hopkins University
Lois Schultz, Head of Monographic Cataloging, Duke University
Programmers
Curtis Fornadley, Digital Library Lead Programmer, UCLA  
(OAI Service and Sheet Music Virtual Collections)
David Reynolds, Metadata Librarian, Johns Hopkins University
Kurt W. Whitsel, Programmer, Indiana University
Will Sexton, Programmer, Duke University
Darrow Cole, Programmer, Library Information Systems, UCLA
Technical Support, Design, and Editing
Teal Anderson, Usability and Focus Group Consultant, Johns Hopkins University
Michelle Dalmau, Interface and Usability Specialist, Indiana University
Jenn Riley, Digital Media Specialist, Digital Library Program, Indiana University
John Riemer, Head of Cataloging, Young Research Library, UCLA
Howard Batchelor, Digital Library Coordinator, UCLA
 
  Data Providers
 

Collections Indexed

Library of Congress, Music Division
47,528 records
Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University
20,157 records
Lilly Library, Indiana University
17,937 records
Maine Music Box
11,779 records
Lester Levy Collection, Johns Hopkins University
11,590 records
National Library of Australia
6,731 records
UCLA Music Library
4,593 records
 
  Information for Data Providers

 

The Consortium welcomes prospective data providers who wish to make metadata for their sheet music collections available for harvesting by the principles of the Open Archives Initiative Metadata Harvesting Protocol (OAI-PMH). These guidelines are merely recommendations: we would be glad to discuss details via email. This section addresses: Collection Policy, OAI Standard Implementation, Planning Data Mapping, and Testing Data Harvesting.

Collection Policy

We are currently accepting collections of metadata and/or images of sheet music, as opposed to musical scores and audio collections. We encourage international contributions, but currently require metadata in English. Although we can accept sheet music collection information consisting of metadata only, our goal is to build an international collection of digitized sheet music, and we prefer participation by collections that are in the process of digitizing their sheet music for online viewing.

OAI Standard Implementation

The technical standard, with sample code and test sites for data providers, is defined at the Open Archives Initiative web site. There are several ways to become a data provider:

1. Build your own software according to the standard specifications for OAI-PMH (version 2). This may be feasible even if your data is not in a standard format if you have the programming skills available.

2. Use available OAI software. Several open source packages are available (see list at the OAI site) into which you can port your data.

3. Find a collaborator. One of the existing Sheet Music Consortium data providers may be willing to host your data. Contact them and ask.

4. Wait for the new standard for encapsulating your data into a large XML document for harvesting by a special service (check the OAI site for news).
Planning Data Mapping

The mapping of your metadata from its native format to Dublin Core will determine how well it is discovered within the Sheet Music Consortium OAI Service. Because OAI requires at least Dublin Core, the project team has developed guidelines for data mapping. The following is intended as a guide for mapping existing sheet music data to unqualified Dublin Core. It is not intended as a guide for the creation of new metadata, but may prove useful for planning purposes in conjunction with other resources for the description of sheet music. An important guide to sheet music description is available from the Music Library Association: 

Cataloging Sheet Music: Guidelines for Use with AACR2 and the MARC Format.
Edited by Lois Schultz and Sarah Shaw. Scarecrow Press (2003).
(Music Library Association Technical Reports, 28) ISBN 0-8108-47507.


The first version of the sheet music harvester will harvest data in the 15 fields of unqualified Dublin Core: Title, Creator, Subject, Description, Publisher, Contributor, Date, Type, Format, Identifier, Source, Language, Relation, Coverage, Rights.

Each field is repeatable, however, the principal Title field (as opposed to alternative and subsidiary titles, first lines, etc.) should appear before other titles in the record.

The order in which the fields appear is not important as long as the information is tagged using standard Dublin Core. For both ease of reading and machine processing it is recommended that the fields appear in the order above.

Information that appears in square brackets below — indicating creator roles, sources of information etc. — can be included but cannot necessarily be used by the browsing software of the service application at UCLA Digital Library.

Because  there is a substantial body of sheet music cataloging that follows the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd ed. (AACR2) the general formatting of data should follow that standard where possible. Although we anticipate that formatting will vary from institution to institution, differences will be few if AACR2 is used as a general guide.

Examples of UCLA Dublin Core records can be found at:

http://digital.library.ucla.edu/oai/ ( 462 records: includes Title, Creator, Description, Publisher, Date, Identifier, Source, Language, Rights)

http://unitdev.library.ucla.edu/mus_test/apamview/oai/index.cfm ( 970+ records, includes Subject, Type, Format fields in addition)

For advice on application these standards to existing or new data contact Stephen Davison at the UCLA Music Library: sdavison@library.ucla.edu.

 
  Standards for Mapping Sheet Music Cataloging to Dublin Core

 

Dublin Core Element Definitions and Guidelines:
Sheet Music Consortium Service, Phase 1

Questions and Examples
Note: Any bracketed descriptor terms should follow the data.

Title

A name given to the resource.
Typically, a Title will be a name by which the resource is formally known.

The first occurrence of DC.Title must be the main song title.

Title (and variants), may also include: first line, first line of refrain/chorus, and other forms by which the work might be known.

Recommendation: Following AACR2 capitalization rules. Omit the statement of responsibility.


April fool [song title]
Martini [show title] 
The Cornell Masque presents Martini [alternative title] 
Poets say, that an April day is much like the ways of lovers [first line]
Gloomy season, without reason, makes our hearts seem far apart [first line of chorus]

 

Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the content of the resource.
Examples of a Creator include a person, an organization, or a service. Typically, the name of a Creator should be used to indicate the entity.
Composer, lyricist, arranger. Other contributors, including illustrator, artist, photographer, etc. Recommend last name first.

Recommendation: Invert name. Use the authorized form of name where possible. If needed (e.g. for an alias) repeat the field for the alternative form.


Shaw, J. B., Jr. [lyricist] 
Stanley, J. Selwyn [composer]
Subject The topic of the content of the resource.
Typically, a Subject will be expressed as keywords, key phrases or classification codes that describe a topic of the resource.
Recommended best practice is to select a value from a controlled vocabulary or formal classification scheme. Subject headings, usually from controlled vocabularies such as LCSH, LCTGM, AAT, etc. Also local vocabularies.

Recommendation: Attempt to map to existing vocabularies wherever possible.
Songs with piano [LCSH] 
Dance [TGM]
Music boxes [TGM] Musical revues & comedies [TGM] 
Women [TGM]
Description An account of the content of the resource.
Description may include but is not limited to: an abstract, table of contents, reference to a graphical representation of content or a free-text account of the content.
Any descriptive notes concerning the publication. Includes quotes from the publication concerning attributions, origins, format, associated performing artists, etc. Include publisher's number and plate numbers as notes with standards labels. Use the labels "Plate number: " and "Publisher number: " [placed in front] if possible. Persons associated with the music that are not creators (e.g. dedicatees, sponsors) can be included in the description. Descriptive fields may include a variety of information, with a variety of labels ("Plate number", etc.). This field would always be keyword searched, not browsed.  From Irving Berlin's Music box revue

Lyrics: What a beautiful morning What a wonderful day We can hear the birds singing As we go on our way, Like a couple of children, We're so happy and gay for we've been married two years now And we're gonna be divorced to day. The judge is waiting at the court around the corner for the wife and me With the final decree You'll see a happy groom and bride Standing side by side Receiving congratulations When the knot is untied a foxy lawyer at the court around the corner will collect his fee the minute we're free We'll be divorced and then We'll soon be married again At the court around the corner the little wife and me 

Plate number: 6596-4
Publisher number: 7466
Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available.
Examples of a Publisher include a person, an organization, or a service. Typically, the name of a Publisher should be used to indicate the entity.
Place of publication and name of the publishing person or corporate entity. Use AACR2 formatting if possible.

Follow standard AACR2 formatting if possible (Place followed by Publisher). It is likely that the place will be split off into a separate field in the DCQ phase.

New York : Cornell Masque Ithaca
New York : M. Witmark & Sons
Contributor Not used. Use Creator instead.
An entity responsible for making contributions to the content of the resource.

Examples of a Contributor include a person, an organization, or a service. Typically, the name of a Contributor should be used to indicate the entity.
Date A date associated with an event in the life cycle of the resource.
Typically, Date will be associated with the creation or availability of the resource. Recommended best practice for encoding the date value is defined in a profile of ISO 8601 [W3CDTF] and follows the YYYY-MM-DD format.
Date of publication. The most recent date to appear on the music, or, the actual date of publication if not present but known. Include other dates (e.g. date of composition) if known. Codes "c" for copyright and "ca." for circa in front of the date is allowed for now.

Use repeated DC fields for each date if needed.1920 [date of publication]
2002-07-17 [date of digitization]
c1902
[ca. 1800]
18--
Type The nature or genre of the content of the resource.
Type includes terms describing general categories, functions, genres, or aggregation levels for content. Recommended best practice is to select a value from a controlled vocabulary (for example, the working draft list of Dublin Core Types [DCT1]). To describe the physical or digital manifestation of the resource, use the FORMAT element.
Standard phrase for this format. Sheet music?

Sheet music
Image
Text data, music
[electronic resource]


Note: "Image" is from the Dublin Core type vocabulary http://www.dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-type-vocabulary/;
"Text data, music" and "[electronic resource]" are OCLC/CORC and AACR2 [gmd] terms respectively.
Format The physical or digital manifestation of the resource.
Typically, Format may include the media-type or dimensions of the resource. Format may be used to determine the software, hardware or other equipment needed to display or operate the resource. Examples of dimensions include size and duration. Recommended best practice is to select a value from a controlled vocabulary (for example, the list of Internet Media Types [MIME] defining computer media formats).
AACR2 format statement.
MIME type statement.


5 p. of music
1 score (5 p.)
image/tiff
image/jpeg
Note: "image/tiff", "image/jpeg", "application/pdf" are standard internet media [MIME] types; see: http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/iana/assignments/media-types/media-types.
Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context.
Recommended best practice is to identify the resource by means of a string or number conforming to a formal identification system. Example formal identification systems include the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) (including the Uniform Resource Locator (URL)), the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and the International Standard Book Number (ISBN).

Supply an Identifier only when the sheet music exists in digital form.

URL for the digital form of the music:

http://digital.library.ucla.edu/sheetmusic/servlet/sheetmusic.LibrarianServlet?ITEMID=IBATC
SOURCE

A reference to a resource from which the present resource is derived.
The present resource may be derived from the Source resource in whole or in part. Recommended best practice is to reference the resource by means of a string or number conforming to a formal identification system.

Call number of the physical item.
UCLA. Music Library. Archive of Popular American Music. SY118524 [call number]

Language A language of the intellectual content of the resource.

Recommended best practice for the values of the Language element is defined by RFC 1766 [RFC1766] which includes a two-letter Language Code (taken from the ISO 639 standard [ISO639]), followed, optionally, by a two-letter Country Code (taken from the ISO 3166 standard [ISO3166]). For example, 'en' for English, 'fr' for French, or 'en-uk' for English used in the United Kingdom.
Language(s) of the text of the song and accompanying material. Use either full name or code. Repeated DC term/line is recommended if needed.

English [en]
French [fr]
Relation Optional. No recommendation.
A reference to a related resource.
Recommended best practice is to reference the resource by means of a string or number conforming to a formal identification system.
Coverage The extent or scope of the content of the resource.
Coverage will typically include spatial location (a place name or geographic coordinates), temporal period (a period label, date, or date range) or jurisdiction (such as a named administrative entity). Recommended best practice is to select a value from a controlled vocabulary (for example, the Thesaurus of Geographic Names [TGN]) and that, where appropriate, named places or time periods be used in preference to numeric identifiers such as sets of coordinates or date ranges.
Optional. No recommendation.
Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource.
Typically, a Rights element will contain a rights management statement for the resource, or reference a service providing such information. Rights information often encompasses Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), Copyright, and various Property Rights. If the Rights element is absent, no assumptions can be made about the status of these and other rights with respect to the resource.
Wording and format determined by copyright holder. e.g., (c) 2003. The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

Testing Data Harvesting

Once you have tested your software against the OAI site and have mapped your data we will harvest it. Please contact UCLA Digital Library Systems Architect Curtis Fornadley curtisf@library.ucla.edu.
 
  Project Timeline 
 

The first phase of the project, which established the service as a gateway to US collections, contained 78,708 records: 17,417 records from Indiana University, 11,590 from Johns Hopkins University, 2,173 from UCLA Music Library's Archive of Popular American Music, and 47,528 from the Library of Congress. Subsequent harvests have raised the total to 120,315 records from seven institutions, as shown in the table above.

Key Dates
Fall and Winter 2001: Brainstormed the idea of a collaborative sheet music project based on the Open Archive Initiative Protocol at Coalition for Networked Information and Digital Library Federation. Found partners - UCLA, Johns Hopkins University, Indiana University, and Library of Congress. A steering team was formed.
March 2002: Held an open meeting (12 institutions, 24 people) at Indiana University, drafted a Dublin Core standard for description of sheet music, and agreed to proceed with harvesting data.
Summer 2002: Build prototype harvester and harvested test data from the four data providers.
Fall 2002: With support from the Mellon Foundation, conducted usability and focus groups at five institutions - Duke University, Brown University, UCLA, Indiana University, and Johns Hopkins University.
Spring 2003: Redesigned interface based on study results.
July - August 2003: Testing production release and re-harvesting data, including new data from Indiana University, UCLA, and Duke University.
September 2003: Version 1.0 release.
 
  Technical Overview
  Presentation given at Coalition for Networked Information, December, 2002 by Curtis Fornadley.
 
  Sheet Music on the Web
 
About sheet music

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sheetmusic/about.html

 
Other sheet music sites

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sheetmusic/sites.html

 

http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~mkduggan/links.html

Last Revised: June 1, 2006