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Collection Development and Access Plan:
Music

Prepared by Tracey Rudnick, January 2003. Last revised: April 2, 2003
DRAFT for review by the Music Department, Spring 2003

Purpose:

The purpose of this Collection Development and Access Plan is threefold. First, it is a tool for the UConn Libraries to become better informed of the information and data needs of academic programs on campus. Second, it will outline how existing local collections, networked electronic services, and document-delivery services are being utilized to meet the bibliographic needs of these programs. Third, it is hoped that this plan will provide the faculty and the library staff a base for dialog concerning future information needs and areas for cooperation. This plan follows the broad guidelines established in Ownership and Access in a Global Information Market: A Framework for the University of Connecticut Libraries, issued by the Chancellor's Library Advisory Committee in March 1999.

Contents:

1. Characteristics of the Community
2. Collections Budget Expenditure Patterns
3. Current Patterns of Information Service
4. Emerging Choices

I. Characteristics of the Community

The Music Department offers courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level. The Bachelor of Music degree provides professional training for a variety of careers in musical performance and is the initial step for those seeking employment as college or conservatory instructors. At the core is intensive private performance study with a member of the artist faculty, and a series of courses (including theory, conducting, and music history) devoted to the development of musicianship skills and fundamental musical knowledge. Students may earn degrees with emphases in theory, performance, or music education (the latter certification offered in cooperation with the Neag School of Education for students who plan to become teachers in the primary or secondary levels). A Bachelor of Arts degree offers a wider range of elective opportunities for students, while preserving the core of intensive private study with a member of the artist faculty. Students often choose this degree in preparation for alternative careers in music such as music management, music technology, or the commercial music industry.

The Music Department offers masters and doctoral degrees in conducting, historical musicology (M.A. only), music education, music theory and history (Ph.D. only), performance, and theory (M.A. only). Students may also participate in a one-year program following undergraduate degree to earn a performance certificate.

2001-02 Enrollment
Undergraduate	Graduate
174 Total BM =28 total (5 brass, 1 guitar, 3 strings, 1 theory, 12 voice, 3 woodwinds) BS = 112 music education BA = 34 bachelor of arts	73 Total MM = 40 total (1 brass, 4 conducting, 22 music education, 2 piano, 4 strings, 4 voice, and 3 woodwinds) MA = 7 music theory/historyPh.D = 8 theory/history, 2 education DMA = 17 total: 1 brass, 3 conducting, 3 piano, 3 cello, 6 voice

Source: Deborah Trahan, Department of Music Administrative Assistant

Faculty (Spring 2002)

• 22 full-time faculty
• 30 affiliated faculty / special payroll lecturers;
• 1 one-year FTE appointment; 1 FTE personal services agreement Other Communities Using the Collections
  The music collections provide sound and video recordings, scores, librettos, audition material, vocational information, and research materials for several other programs on and off campus, including the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, von der Mehden Recital Hall, the Connecticut Repertory Theatre, Dramatic Arts courses (including dance and sound design), the Ballard Museum and Institute of Puppetry, the Community School of the Arts, students at E. O. Smith High School, the Amherst Early Music Festival, local musical theater productions, and community musicians. Faculty and students from other academic disciplines and regional campuses (e.g., psychology, literary composition, foreign language, history, sciences, business) often seek music materials to support their teaching, multimedia projects, and recreational needs.

Special Characteristics of the Community
Library users expect to find recent formats (e.g., compact discs instead of LP phonodiscs) and expect the library to keep up with current literature and trends. Users frequently need items right away for rehearsals, "teachable moments," or class assignments, and often use materials for several weeks. If the item is not on the shelf when the user needs it, s/he will do without, and the ordered item will arrive too late. In addition, users often find and use relevant materials only after they visit the library; in this context, the library is part of the educational process.

Users may consult several editions, versions, and performances of the same piece of music. In addition, dramatic arts, world music, performance art, new music, and other disciplines that merge various media require increasingly broad access to video and multimedia materials. The Music Department sponsors a Three-Summers Masters program, in which students come from all over the country to earn masters degrees in three consecutive summers; time is of the essence in these short, research intensive courses. The department does not currently have a strong distance education component. At this writing, primary access to music collections is site based, though some journals have become available online in full text. Located in the physical and intellectual center of the Music Department, the music library collections are central to this department’s musical and educational experience. For further discussion about the use and future of music materials, see section IIIA, Characteristics of the Literature.

Faculty are somewhat aware of changes in mechanics of research and/or changes in scholarly communication. They do not feel the same negative effects as do sciences faculty. Students tend to be less aware of these issues. Faculty are still expected to publish using the normal channels; there are fewer and fewer vehicles for some, and more and more for others; most faculty expect to see the journals in which they publish in the library. Because music journals are numerous, inexpensive, and diverse, many users expect to see their favorites in the library.

II. Collections Budget Expenditure Patterns

• Total 2002-2003 Collections Budget: $60,000
• Serials, collected editions, and selected networked products: $18,500
• Monographs, scores, sound and video recordings, some dramatic arts: $41,500
• Under the Networked Services budget: RILM ($2,166 FY 2001-02) and the online New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians ($1300). Music researchers also benefit from other electronic indexing, full-text services, and packages of electronic journals purchased by the library’s Networked Services budgets, such as WorldCat, Dissertation Abstracts, InfoTrac, Project Muse, JSTOR, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, ERIC, and PsycInfo.

III. Current Patterns of Information Service

1. Characteristics of the Literature

   General
   The discipline relies on several formats, including books, dissertations, and specialized bibliographies; scholarly and professional periodicals; scholarly, urtext, and performance scores; sound recordings; and to a lesser extent, video recordings and tests and measurements. Scores and recordings are required for numerous instruments, ensembles, styles, genres, performance abilities, numerous years of musical study and ensemble performance, trends, visiting artists/composers, and new music. The broad scope of research and teaching within the field of music requires access to a wide variety of monograph and periodical titles covering various music theories; history, historiography, literature, critical study, performance practice, and reception; individual instruments’ or ensembles’ history, repertoire, methods and techniques; genres and styles periods; psychology and perception; technology; ethnography; repressed cultures; and popular studies. There is increasing emphasis on interdisciplinary studies. More and more books are published in music. University presses are less selective, often publishing camera-ready material with minimal editing. Electronic books and journals for music are evolving at a slow but steady pace. Each year brings some development, but in general, the market is small and fine arts are significantly behind their scientific colleagues.

   Both "music literature" and "literature about music" have a long half life, that is, both are apt to be cited and used over a long period of time; users need reliable access to both old and new material. Materials, particularly scores and recordings, are often needed at the time of request, such that rush ordering or interlibrary loan (print material only) is too late for the user.

   Serials
   The journal literature comes from commercial publishers, and from scholarly and professional societies like the American Musicological Society, the College Music Society, and the Percussive Arts Society. Many music journals are affordably priced. Most journals from commercial publishers have seen only modest price increases in recent years. Electronic access is in increasing demand and is increasingly available for materials in the music field.

   Scores
   Most researchers and performers use a wide variety of editions (e.g., scholarly, urtext, performance, facsimile reproductions, or annotated). Different "manifestations" of a musical work may include large conducting scores, miniature study scores, condensed scores, vocal or choral scores, parts (small ensemble only), arrangements, fakebooks, excerpts, analytical reductions, method books, and graduated studies. Expensive collections of composers’ complete works and monumental sets from scholarly societies form the heart of a music collection. There are more scholarly editions now, forcing us to choose among them. Music materials may come in large folios that must be laid flat, or in loose sheaves requiring special binding. Much of the important literature is published by small presses and desktop publishers that fall outside the purview of major vendors. Self-published scores and compact discs (CD) have especially increased in number. Electronic options for scores may provide exciting new delivery methods in the future, but for now, most scores are only available in physical formats such as print or disc with PDF files.

   A/V Recordings
   Recorded audio and video performances offer a variety of interpretations and techniques that reflect new scholarship, opinions, aesthetics, or technical abilities; some performances are on period instruments. Most libraries do not lend A/V materials through interlibrary loan. Many materials are reissued in new formats; others are not, yet retain their research, performance, and recreational value.

2. Collection Development
   1. Areas of Focus

      Current Emphases

   2. Faculty and student requests (i.e., individual items or broader areas supporting curricular or research needs).
   3. Retrospective collection of standard repertoire and alternative editions or performances to support the following: the curriculum; undergraduate, graduate, or faculty research; performance; format matches (e.g., a recording to be used with a score we already own); added copies to support demand; special programs; and other articulated needs.
   4. General collecting that reflects new compositions, editions/performances, trends, and research.
   5. Format upgrades, especially to CD and DVD as appropriate. This is increasingly demanded by users.
   6. Every year focus on several topical areas: at least one regional, non-Western "art," or folk music; at least two applied studios (solo or chamber/ensemble music), especially if collections are poor but user demand exists; two to three projects each year focusing on a genre, composer, type of edition, or label (e.g., urtext, concertos, Bach, twentieth-century British composers, opera, Smithsonian); and significant jazz each year.

      The library strives to provide standard repertoire and literature that supports inquiry beyond the curriculum to support students’ research, cross-disciplinary work, or preparation for post-undergraduate professional programs. For example, while UConn does not teach electronic music, many students are interested in the topic and are researching, creating, or performing it, and some have gone on to graduate study in this area. While trends and growth can be anticipated and accommodated, day-to-day requests cannot be if the library has not proactively maintained the collection.

      Faculty Areas
      The following areas have been targeted at some time in the last four years based upon faculty’s articulated research or curriculum needs: twentieth-century British music, early music, music education testing and measurement, research in music education, Beethoven scholarship (esp. foreign-language materials), urtext string editions, trombone repertoire, selected woodwind and brass repertoire, vocal and operatic music, French twentieth-century music, music and textual studies, and wind ensemble repertoire and literature.

      Materials Traditionally Not Collected
      Popular music has not traditionally been part of the curriculum, but this is changing. Very soon the Libraries and Music Department will need to identify goals, desired outcomes, strategies, and funding sources for building a popular music collection.

      Textbooks (except as needed for reference, research, or extracurricular support), popular reading, guide books, examinations, laboratory manuals, software and hardware manuals are generally not collected, though selected third party manuals may be purchased for music or CAI software.

      The library neither collects nor manages parts for large ensembles (e.g., orchestra, band, choir, or ensembles larger than ten instruments). It remains to be determined whether the library should be purchasing enough chamber music to support chamber music programs. Currently, holdings are representative, rather than comprehensive. Likely, the result will be a compromise, with the library, department, students, and faculty building shared collections.

      While the library strives to provide numerous editions, manifestations, and performances, and well as second or third copies of heavily used materials, it does not collect multiple copies for class use (e.g., where thirty students follow musical scores while listening to a recording).

   7. Acquisition Strategies
      1. Monographs

         The University of Connecticut Libraries use the approval plan and notification slip services of Yankee Book Peddler to supply the bulk of new monographs. Books and slips are received based on a profile that is broad in coverage for Music. Most titles are selected and ordered from the slips (some of these previously came on standing order). Publishers who do not offer a discount to Yankee or produce less than five titles a year are not covered. In addition, brochures and catalogs from publishers and reviews from various sources are consulted for other materials that might be added to the collections. Specific suggestions from library users, including students and faculty, are always given full consideration. Dissertations must be specifically requested for purchase. Musical audition tests (non-expendable materials only) are collected upon request to support graduate coursework in tests and measurements.

      2. Yankee Approval Plan Publishers profile http://www.ybp.com/ybp/DomIndex.html?publisher_lists.html&1 (Book/slip data is obsolete.)
      3. Other sources regularly reviewed for monographic selection: Music Library Association annual meeting exhibits; MLA Notes reviews, "Books Received" lists, and MLA-L listserv; advertisements in music periodicals (particularly applied areas); online vendors.
      4. Journals

         The library maintains extensive periodical subscriptions covering a wide variety of musical disciplines. New journal subscriptions in Music are generally ordered pursuant to a student or faculty request. The library requires special justification, or evidence of demand from our document-delivery statistics, to consider titles from for-profit publishers known for rapidly increasing the subscription costs of their titles. Also, addition of new titles will likely require trade-offs (i.e., cancellations) of currently held titles. Fortunately, the relatively low inflation rates for Music journals have made regular serial cuts somewhat unnecessary in recent years. Back runs of music periodicals are purchased (or in the case of gifts, added) if they meet the following criteria: (1) contents are required on short notice for summer graduate courses or regular undergraduate/graduate course assignments where DD/ILL cannot fill requests quickly enough; (2) materials are unindexed (e.g., ads, letters, competitions, or biographical news in applied journals) or better accessed serendipitously and if it is anticipated that users will indeed seek such information. (See also section IIC2: "Access Development, Acquisition Strategies: Electronic Journals.")

      5. Scores, Recordings (General Comments)

         Scores and recordings are collected almost equally to monographs and serials. Unlike other disciplines that collect A/V materials only upon user request, scores and recordings are collected proactively based on anticipated user need and trends. The library uses specialized music vendors (e.g., Pepper Music and Music Library Sales Company), going directly to publishers or labels if that is more advantageous. The library has standing order with Pepper and selected record labels for important new composers, new music, and selected new editions. Pepper also sends the library selection slips. The library takes advantage of sales and offers to fill in gaps, but has missed some significant opportunities, especially for hard-to-get European materials. Finding accurate citations to available scores is challenging and time consuming since there is no current "music in print" (there is a product by that title, but the print version is out of date, and the online version is of poor quality). Online score shops offer poor search mechanisms. Online sound recording stores (and online OP vendors) are better and have significantly improved the library’s purchasing success simply because it is easier to identify in-print recordings than it was five years ago.

         Acquisitions Strategies: Scores
         The library holds a significant number of inexpensive, poorly edited scores. While these help fill in repertoire gaps, an effort is underway to add well-edited editions; users in various areas are consulted as to whether they wish to upgrade old editions or purchase music not owned in any edition.

         The collection’s strengths include its general breadth and depth, plus its holdings in early music, selected research material, monuments and collected editions, standard repertoire, string and piano music, and to some extent, new music and vocal and operatic music. ("Strengths" in this context implies that users are more likely to find materials of use to them; it neither implies comprehensive collections nor "completed" activity for those areas.) The collection is missing selected titles--sometimes even the most standard repertoire--that patrons rightly expect to find in large academic library supporting musicians and music education. The collection is weaker in many of the applied areas (e.g., saxophone), unless the instructor made a concerted effort to submit purchase requests. (Weakness in this context means users find very little of use to them.) There is a very small collection of popular music anthologies. Under the right circumstances, a combination of on-site ownership and effective interlibrary loan services can provide access sufficient to meet users’ needs. On-site materials include those needed for daily coursework, ensemble preparation, and short-notice research projects; standard repertoire to support individual study; long-term research materials; and sufficient solo and small ensemble material to support discovery, sightreading, score study, and "teachable moments."

         Acquisitions Strategies: Sound Recordings
         At this writing all recordings are purchased in compact disc format. Much of the standard repertoire and most frequently requested works have been collected on CD (some in several performances), but a good deal of work remains in this area. Users want more compact disc recordings, especially secondary (but not obscure) repertoire. The collection’s strengths mirror those found in the scores. The library has a small collection of world music that satisfies many but not all users. The jazz collection is quickly growing. There is no popular music collection; this is a growing area in academia that will need addressing.

         The library retains its Long Playing (LP) phonodisc collection, as it is a fairly complete collection, offers numerous performances and works otherwise unavailable for purchase, and ensures an adequate number of recordings for patron use. Upgrading the entire collection to compact disc is beyond the library’s means. LP gifts are added if they replace worn library LPs, if CDs cannot be purchased, or if the gifts fill a broad need that the budget cannot support.

         Acquisitions Strategies: Video Recordings and Software
         The Music video collection includes complete operatic performances, musicals, world music performances and locales, documentaries (e.g., biographies), movies about music, musical tours, acoustics, physiology, and applied topics (e.g., conducting, instrumental instruction, vocal production techniques). Such items have a short physical shelf life (twenty years or less for VHS) but a long intellectual shelf life. The library only upgrades video formats if it is perceived that the video will be actively used. Most of the collection is on VHS, though DVD is currently purchased whenever possible; VHS is purchased upon reasonable request if no DVD is available. The library uses both general and specialized music vendors. The collection has alternately been collected on an as-needed basis and as part of a proactive effort when it is almost assured that patrons will request the video (e.g., opera). In the late 1990s, the Music Department asked the former music librarian to forgo many sound recordings in favor of building the video collection, but this music librarian has seen no such demand. The Culpeper Library has a collection of musicals on video that should be further upgraded and developed to serve other departments on campus (e.g., Dramatic Arts).

         The library collects CD-ROMs and enhanced CDs containing multimedia or PDF scores. Such items have met with lukewarm reception in this library: users are excited about these products when they know about them, but playback equipment is intermittently functional, the products are often dated or slow, and content is limited. For more information, refer to section IV, "Emerging Choices" below.

3. Access Development

   In order to assist Music researchers in locating the research materials they need, the library uses a combination of local collections, licensed electronic products, subject and program-based web links, current awareness services, and document delivery and interlibrary loan.

   1. Acquisitions Strategies: Indexes, Abstracts, Library Catalogs and Bibliographic Utilities

      The current complement of general electronic indexing, abstracting, full-text services, current-awareness services, and retrospective print resources provided by the library, as well as those specific to Music, are generally sufficient to meet the above stated objective. The library chooses not to subscribe to several music databases because of exorbitant pricing (e.g., the otherwise highly desirable index to nineteenth-century writings, RIPM) or an exceeding poor interface and database (e.g., Schwann).

      Long-Term Availability of Key Electronic Indexes
      Robust, desktop access to key bibliographical sources and online forms for interlibrary loan and document-delivery service requests are key elements of the Libraries’ service strategy. We recognize though, that licensed access is provisional, not permanent. The online Music Index has a history of slight instability; canceling the print subscription would be a moderate (but not unacceptable) risk since its equally (in)secure competitor, the International Index to Music Periodicals, has strong coverage of recent music periodical literature. (Each index has different coverage, so both electronic subscriptions should be retained.) RILM Abstracts, the indexer and abstracter of all musical things scholarly, is limited in scope but is the most valuable of the three databases: graced with strong leadership, institutional ties, and vendor support, it is very likely to endure in electronic form. Back issues are available for purchase and NELINET will hold print copies in its forthcoming regional storage center. Canceling the print subscription would be an acceptable risk.

      The bibliographic databases, WorldCat and RLIN, because they contain records and locations for monographs, scores, recordings, videos, newspapers, journals, microforms and manuscript collections, are vital to all users of the music collections. These resources have no print equivalents, but are both controlled by non-profit organizations. Although they may ultimately merge, they seem likely to persist.

   2. Acquisition Strategies: Electronic Journals, Books and Data

      The library expects many of its journal subscriptions will be exclusively electronic in the coming years. However, concern about the permanency or archival access may outweigh the virtues of distributed access. At present the library prefers to consider relying exclusively on electronic provision from only a small number of not-for-profit suppliers, like JSTOR, which only offers back files, or Project Muse, from which we already get several titles that we do not duplicate in paper. Despite the planned expansion of both Project Muse and JSTOR, and the Music Library Association’s efforts, only a small number of music journals are likely to be electronically accessible in the near future from these vendors/organizations. The Music Library Association is also working closely with other vendors and music societies to ensure adequate music representation in the more reliable full-text services.

      In the meantime, the library’s electronic journal locator, eCompass, facilitates the identification of specific e-journal titles "owned" by the library, that is, those accessible via the University internet domain (uconn.edu) in aggregate databases (e.g., InfoTrac) as well as publisher packages (e.g., JSTOR). Music titles are increasingly well-represented in aggregate databases and have proven useful to those who require the most recent research (e.g., music educators). The library does not subscribe to discipline-specific full-text databases that substantially duplicate full-text holdings in our general aggregates. For example, the full-text version of the International Index to Music Periodicals (IIMP) not only duplicates other full-text holdings at UConn, it does not actually contain all of the full text advertised.

      Graduate students and some faculty increasingly request electronic access to journal content. When presented with the unfortunate economic choice (at the industry, rather than institutional level) between comprehensive indexing of the literature versus full-text access to a handful of articles, must users prefer better indexing. Nonetheless, the convenience of being able to locate and print/download articles at the desktop is appealing and compelling, particularly for students enrolled in intensive summer programs, where there is little time to wait for DD/ILL. Users decidedly prefer electronic indexes over print. They have also embraced the new online version of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, despite its growing pains.

      Electronic texts are currently most attractive where users are many and dispersed. Except for reference books (e.g., GroveMusic Online, Oxford Dictionaries), which are popular among users, initial electronic monographs largely reproduce print texts, and have been met with lukewarm resistance to disdain; music has been poorly represented in recent products (e.g., NetLibrary). The library selectively purchases multimedia products that teach musical works, periods, composers, or genres, as well as books with supplementary CD-ROMs; usage is limited only by the library’s sporadic playback capabilities and need for more advertisements.

      The library has acquired some print music on CD-ROM; these use-in-library items help ensure that that print music for the most frequently requested repertoire is available even when print scores are checked out; in addition, all printouts from these CD-ROMs are copyright compliant.

      Electronic reserves and the "virtual classroom" are currently limited by copyright to the reproduction of small segments of monographs; musical scores are largely excluded, and audio recordings are now being explored in a Digital Audio Reserves Pilot Project, started in spring 2003; in the latter, copyright compliance and organizational capacity will be more challenging than the technology itself.

      The library selectively provides access to technology that provides reasonable access at a reasonable cost to meet a reasonable or outstanding need. It also selectively provides access to emerging, perhaps imperfect technologies in part to educate itself and the users. It does not subscribe for the sake of being "a digital library," nor does it give its dollars to the poorest ventures. For further discussion about electronic resources, refer to section IV, "Emerging Choices" below.

   3. Other Internet-based resources

      The music liaison maintains a web page that organizes and promotes a wide range of electronic resources for music, including locally licensed indexing/abstracting services and full-text resources located at /research/bysubject/music2.htm. The liaison welcomes comments on improvements to the page and/or additional sites that should be listed.

   4. Document Delivery/Interlibrary Loan

      DD/ILL is an integral part of all our collection development and access plans. DD/ILL data is actively considered in relation to both journal purchase decisions and collection budget planning. Music faculty and graduate populations use DD/ILL primarily for scores, theses and dissertations. Undergraduates also retrieve scores through DD/ILL. Generally, the fill rate is greater than 70%. The most difficult item to acquire from this group is theses, followed by rarer scores. Video and sound recordings generally cannot be obtained through interlibrary loan. Most music materials are obtained regionally, but a national effort is often made to acquire what is needed. The music liaison coordinates closely with DD/ILL and the Music Department to ensure adequate on-site materials and speedy DD/ILL service for students enrolled in the time-intensive Three Summers Music Education Graduate program.

      DD/ILL Reports: available upon request.

   5. Significant Campus or External Resources

      At this writing (spring 2003) the UConn Libraries had just joined the Boston Library Consortium (BLC). This organization includes several libraries with outstanding music collections, many with specialized or archival materials. UConn music students who live in Boston or greater Massachusetts have already begun regularly using those collections. The BLC has a strong Music and Media "Community of Interest," a group of individuals who share knowledge and best practices. Collaborative projects, collection strategies, and perhaps sound recording loan programs might be anticipated. In addition, it may be possible to set up reciprocal sound recording and/or rush score/book programs with Hartford University, Wesleyan, and other Connecticut libraries with strong music holdings.

IV. Emerging Choices

One of the key purposes of the Planning Statement is to prepare the way for changes in collection development practices, based on trends and forces at work in the local academic program and in the wider community of teachers and learners in the discipline. Our overall goal is to optimize teaching, learning, and research for this program, within the constraints of our finite resources.

While the library supports doctoral research, it increasingly recognizes the importance of serving undergraduates. While many materials are used in both undergraduate and graduate work, there is a slight uneasiness concerning the acquisition of obscure, little-used, yet vital research material versus highly-requested performance, para-curricular (i.e., supporting study outside of class), and extra-curricular material requested daily by music students and members of the UConn and state community. The question boils down to "are we a research library, performing library, or both" and "how do we serve other campus curricula." Some areas have traditionally been well served (though may not always think so) and have a high expectation of continuing service; others have been poorly served and demand better. In addition, departmental accreditation and individual certification programs apply constant motivation to develop collections in new areas (e.g., technology, improvisation, and world music).

Online Resources (General Comments)
Music, as a specialized discipline, does not easily support low-cost licensing models. Some databases are of general research or professional interest; fortunately, the library has not yet had to make difficult choices regarding the most essential databases. (Indeed, with those resources, the choices lie in the kind of feedback we give to vendors regarding future development.) Emerging databases (e.g., RIPM) have been long anticipated, are necessary for doctoral research, may be of high quality, and offer wonderful opportunities for our constituents, but because of their specialized nature use would attract only low use; we must choose between print and electronic; the former often wins. Others are of very poor quality, and the print equivalent is disappearing (e.g., Schwann); we must choose whether to vote with our dollars and do without or support an inferior product.

Books and Journals
(See section IIIC2, "Acquisition Strategies: Electronic Journals, Books, and Data" for current professional efforts.) Electronic books and journals for music are evolving at a slow but steady pace. Each year brings some small development, but in general, the market is small and fine arts are significantly behind their scientific colleagues. Users want these resources, but think twice when they learn about the limitations and costs. Users are not completely aware of what these current and future technology will do for them, and could be better educated as to how to lobby the industry for change. When queried, users want access anytime, anyplace (e.g., for articles). When asked about research and development priorities, they frequently indicate that they want more complete indexing before full text, but not until both issues are fully explained. There is almost no demand for online books.

Scores and Recordings: General Comments
The library receives occasional requests for online scores and recordings, mostly from faculty. The Libraries and Music Department will carefully consider the trade-offs between hard formats and electronic access, especially if we rely on annual subscription models. In some cases, learning would be greatly enhanced by digital delivery (e.g., off-campus access to assigned course listening or standard repertoire). Online access could allow the Libraries to significantly enhance its holdings in a cost effective manner (e.g., by making otherwise unowned obscure or popular literature available). In other cases, the fleeting convenience of online access cannot offset the long-term sacrifices incurred in the permanent collection, especially in journal, score, and sound recording collections, where highly reliable, long-term access is important for much of the literature. Some formats, particularly scores, do not lend themselves well to online delivery under the current technology, and many materials will never be available online. The challenge will be in finding an effective model that takes advantage of both hard formats and electronic access. The music liaison and Music Department will have to identify criteria for selecting materials.

Scores
Electronic options for scores may provide exciting new delivery methods in the future, but for now, most music materials are only available in physical formats (print or disc). As mentioned above, the library has acquired some music in PDF format on CD-ROM, but the UConn Libraries see this as an inferior delivery method requiring specific hardware, software, and library visits.

Some vendors offer pay-per-download services, but the limited repertoire and questionable notation practices and edition selection, combined with awkward licensing structures have made these options less than attractive for the UConn Libraries. Online music score vendors are increasingly available and their holdings are growing, but at this writing they tend to carry primary and secondary school music, popular music, or simplified classical music; this kind of music will serve some but certainly not most of our users. The search engines are poor, and it is difficult finding music in their sites; this situation may improve as vendors start listening to librarians and users. More services become available each year, and it is anticipated that we will have more viable options within five years.

Cooperative digital resource development may be one answer to prohibitive prices. Harvard, Indiana, and MIT are assembling a prototype in which institutions would scan public-domain or copyright-cleared materials and provide standardized metadata for a free, internationally available database. No one institution can scan all its materials, or even just its reserve materials. Institutions working collaboratively can accomplish this. They may do better to put their resources into collaborative projects than pay exorbitant licensing fees to lease digital copies of public-domain material that they already have on their own shelves.

No matter the model, is not yet clear whether electronic options will provide access to standard repertoire already owned (creating a library without walls), or allow the library to offer obscure or popular material not otherwise owned by the Libraries. Several factors to be considered include editorial standards or provenance of edition (many providers now are using less accurate public-domain scores that instructors wish to avoid); quality of the notation, playback or display quality; streaming/download time; ease of use; effectiveness of search engine; stability, and anticipated use.

Printed music comes in complex formats, and its uses present logistical barriers (e.g., oversized materials; materials intended for performance or effective study with recordings). Currently, one frequently cannot view an entire page of a score online and simultaneously read all the instrumental staves; zooming out renders the notes illegible. Users must be able to quickly turn pages. Users cannot be expected to print out hundreds of pages just so they can use an item. (Performers face the additional problem of taping or stapling items to minimize page turns.) Users will continue to use highly refined print scores--incidentally printed on sturdy, flexible, low-glare paper--until the hardware and software has caught up. At this writing, technologies are emerging that address some of these issues. For example, MusicPad Pro is a personal computer tablet that uses proprietary technology enabling musicians to download or scan, store, display and annotate music. It is appropriately sized for music (except large folios or flat files) and facilitates page turns. The Libraries will probably own some of this technology within five years, and it may be that students will eventually be expected to purchase such products to support their studies.

Online music viewers occasionally have attractive built-in features (e.g., transposition of music, playback), allowing users to recreate music in the ranges they need that the library otherwise would not have, or assess the music before purchasing or using it, but these features are flawed at this writing (e.g., transposed notes collide with text or musical articulations).

Music is not less expensive when delivered online, except that one can purchase just what one needs, rather than an entire anthology or disc; this might be attractive to individual customers. The library should be wary about subsidizing user downloads of music. Musicians build libraries. Users of periodical articles do not typically do this. Musicians would gladly download everything in sight on the library’s dime to build their own copyright-compliant collections.

Recordings
Recordings have many of the same issues as scores; the discourse will not be repeated here. Ongoing choices specific to recordings include the migration to new formats, (e.g., LP to CD, CD to SACD), when to buy new musical works versus upgrading already owned works, how many performances in the new formats, space issues, loan periods for certain formats (e.g., CD-ROM), and preservation of older formats. Regarding network access, as with scores, vendors are offering pay-per-download recordings. Some labels (e.g., Naxos, New World) will soon offer their entire catalogs online, in which the university leases a hard drive containing data and streams the music itself. The quoted prices are exorbitant at this writing, and would nearly (or more than) exhaust our current recordings budget. Other labels allow access to free sites with the purchase of music textbooks. Currently one can find excerpts online, but these are of little use to our users (even if free), and pricing models do not work well for libraries. Some services (e.g., Andante) offer complete works from various labels, but have a limited selection with a high annual subscription price. (At those prices we could buy enough copies of every CD to lend to students.) These sites could become compelling if their catalogs are significantly expanded, or if vendors add works on demand. Such sites potentially offer copyright-cleared selections and remove the labor of digitization from our libraries; they may even support online reserve lists. This has significant implications for the our labor-intensive and legally perilous digital audio reserves services. Eventually vendors will offer a model and repertoire of interest to our libraries. The critical questions will be "to what benefit" and "at what cost."

New technology may allow researchers to extract previously unheard audio information from older analog recordings, or apply new kinds of temporal or timbral analysis.

Other Software or Multimedia
There is some software that the library should (and to some degree does) make available to students, including multimedia products that teach musical works, periods, composers, or genres; music education software (to prepare students for teaching); scores on CD-ROM; books with supplementary CD-ROMs; programmed learning software (e.g., how to read notation; rhythm drills (for pedagogical evaluation, as well as the occasional non-music student who wishes to learn music)); and viewers for files created using specific software or file types (e.g., Sibelius’s Scorch, for viewing and playing Finale music notation files). If the Music & Dramatic Art Library ever makes word processing available it might also make music sequencing, notation, and Endnote software available (e.g., for musical transcription or note taking). The library might also consider setting up a multimedia station for faculty and graduate students to prepare digital audio examples of sound recordings for use in the classroom or reserve.

Further Comments
The clearest challenge in collection development for Music is the complexity of assessing and collecting music itself. The challenges specifically lie in multiple formats, editions, performances; scattered collection development tools; diversity, small presses, constant change without obsolescence; and the lack of time to fully assess collections, combined with a discipline-wide lack of highly efficient, effective tools for collection assessment, selection, ordering, and follow up (this includes local online catalogs). The second challenge is convincing the industry to produce high quality electronic resources, from the most basic indexes to cutting-edge multimedia materials to effective online music stores. The third challenge is having affordable networked options for such materials. Music is not particularly reliant on for-profit/high-profit publishers as are the sciences. The discipline instead relies on shoestring academic or commercial operations that must charge a high price to recoup costs from a small pool of customers. The end result is the same: expensive, low-quality databases and few choices. This impacts the library’s ability to deliver services.

The library uses various mechanisms (e.g., surveys, email queries, faculty meetings, focus groups, and discussions) to capture, and respond to, both the opinions and behaviors of our users. Transaction information from circulation, interlibrary loan, electronic services, and other functions will increasingly influence both our internal resource allocation decisions and the selection and development of collections and services.

The Future of Collecting to Support Music in a Changing Information Economy
Both continuing inflation in the unit cost of print and electronic publications, and expanding demand for new products and services are anticipated. The Libraries do not expect the University to solve this problem by increasing the Libraries’ share of limited University resources. The Libraries hope for a continuation of the current level of support, but cannot regard it as guaranteed. Increasingly though, measures of user behavior such as circulation by classification and patron affiliation, database use, and ILL/document-delivery activity will play a role in budget decision-making.

The significant evolution in collection development and access patterns requires enhanced communication between library staff and the faculty and students they serve. Ongoing dialogue will help ensure that the best choices are being made and that users are knowledgeable about emerging kinds of library resources in terms of access and intelligent use and the risks involved in some of these choices. The Library Liaison Program will continue to be the primary vehicle for this kind of contact.

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