Cecilia

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Cecilia

• Towards a Collection Level Description of the
  Music Holdings of the UK and Ireland

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Cecilia Background and History

• Led by the UK and Ireland Branch of the
  International Association of Music Libraries -
  IAML(UK Irl)
• Developed from the MILDRED project (Music In
  Libraries, Directory and REsource Discovery)
• Barbara Penney, Music in British Libraries (4th
  ed. 1991)
• Funded by BLCPP, RSLP, ReSource and the Music
  Libraries Trust
• Enlarged from a library based resource to a
  cross-domain, cross-sectoral project
• Cecilia began work in September 2001

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Cecilia Objectives

• Cecilia is primarily a resource discovery tool
• Cecilia aims to build a high level map of the
  music materials located in collections held by
  libraries, archives and museums in the UK and
  Ireland
• Public, Academic, National, Special, Private
• Cecilia aims to provide the entry point for
  existing online music resource discovery projects
  (e.g. Ensemble, Music Libraries Online, Encore)

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Cecilia The National Music Resource

• All collections of materials concerned with music
• All music materials held as part of general
  collections
• The aggregate of individual institutional
  collections
• Distributed between many different organisations
• Distributed across domains
• Exists in many different formats

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Cecilia Scope and Context

• Between 650 and 700 institutions identified as
  potential contributors of collection descriptions
• Organisations dedicated to music (e.g.
  conservatoires, university departments, museums
  of musical instruments, departments of national
  and larger public and academic libraries and
  archives, music information centres, private
  collections)
• General libraries, museums and archives with
  smaller music collections
• Organisations with music materials held as part
  of broad general collections

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Cecilia Materials 1

• Formats of materials include
• Manuscript and printed music
• Sound recordings (from wax cylinders to
  minidiscs)
• Audio visual materials (film, video, DVD, CD-ROM)
• Private papers, diaries, letters
• Corporate and business records
• Production and technical records
• Images (paintings, drawings, sculpture,
  photographs, slides, prints, lithographs)
• Books, newspapers, pamphlets, periodicals

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Cecilia Materials 2

• Formats of materials include
• Theses and other academic exercises
• Playscripts and libretti
• Concert programmes
• Press cuttings
• Musical instruments
• Objects (set designs and models, costumes)
• Concert ephemera (tickets, posters, handbills,
  promotional literature)
• Online resources

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Cecilia Method 1

• Cecilia is committed to using the RSLP Collection
  Level Description Schema
• Cecilia developed a version of the schema to take
  account of the range and diversity of music
  materials and the wide variety of holding
  organisations.
• A database was built in MS AccessXP
• The Cecilia website (www.cecilia-uk.org) was
  launched, with online institution and collection
  record forms for data input.

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Cecilia Method 2

• Details of the project and invitations to
  contribute were sent to ca. 700 organisations.
• Data from the original MILDRED library survey was
  used to pilot test the database
• The Cecilia database will be hosted by the
  Performing Arts Data Service (www.pads.ahds.ac.uk/
  )

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CLD for Music 1

• Cecilia is asking a large number of organisations
  to supply data free of charge
• Libraries archives and museums record their
  collection data in different ways
• The structure of the Collection Level Description
  needed to be as simple and flexible as possible

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CLD for Music 2

• Defining the collection
• Librarians, archivists and curators must decide
  what constitutes a collection
• In an online environment it is not necessary to
  restrict CLDs to items of one type or objects
  stored or displayed together
• Practical/pragmatic considerations
• How much time can I give to this project?
• Can I expand or extend my contribution at a later
  stage?
• No rigid definition was imposed general
  guidelines only
• It is inevitable that the level of detail will
  vary

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CLD for Music 3

• Issues include
• Names
• How do you spell Tchaikovsky (Chaykovski??)
• Or Rachmaninoff (Rachmaninov, Rakhmaninov??)
• Or Skryabin (Scriabin, Scriabine??)
• Cecilia uses The New Grove Dictionary of Music
  and Musicians (2nd ed., 2001) as the name
  authority file

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CLD for Music 4

• Issues include
• Subject headings / keywords
• Impractical to insist that a large number of
  diverse institutions conform to a single scheme
• Contributors asked to supply simple keywords,
  singly or in combination
• We are editing the keywords for consistency, and
  building a non-heirarchical concordance
• Searchers will be able to browse lists of
  keywords

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Cecilia - Example

• Institution name The Britten-Pears Library
• Collection title Sources for Britten's
  compositions
• Collection description The collection includes
  Britten's manuscripts, comprising the majority of
  works written from early boyhood until his death
  draft libretti of Britten operas by Eric Crozier,
  Ronald Duncan, E. M. Foster, Myfanwy Piper and
  William Plomer annotated text sources for
  Britten's vocal works printers' copies, proofs
  and early editions of Britten's works original
  stage and costume designs for several of
  Britten's operas. This collection is
  predominantly used by researchers (from
  undergraduate level upwards), performers and
  designers/producers.
• Keywords Composers England Twentieth century
  Opera Librettists Designers

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Cecilia Example (continued)

• Personal / corporate names Britten, Benjamin
  Pears, Peter Piper, Myfanwy Crozier, Eric
  Duncan, Ronald Plomer, William Forster, E. M.
  Piper, John Richards, Ceri
• Place names Lowestoft Snape Aldeburgh Long
  Island New York Wolfsgarten Venice Horham
• Dates associated with collection 1919-1976
• Formats Manuscript music Printed music
  Paintings Drawings Books Microforms
• Languages of materials English Latin French
  German Italian Russian
• Principal_collectors Britten, Benjamin Pears,
  Peter

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Cecilia Example (continued)

• Catalogue / finding_aids http//www.britten-pears
  .co.uk/Catalogue.htm other finding-aids
  available onsite
• Associated publications Benjamin Britten A
  Catalogue of the Published Works, compiled and
  edited by Paul Banks (Aldeburgh 1999)
• Access conditions No material is available to be
  borrowed
• Acquisition policy Manuscripts and primary
  sources continue to be acquired as and when they
  become available. This happens relatively
  rarely.
• Ownership A number of the Britten manuscripts
  belong to the national collection at the British
  Library, and are deposited on permanent loan the
  remainder are owned by the Britten-Pears
  Foundation. Many of the printers' copies, proofs
  and early editions of Britten's music are on loan
  from his publishers.

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Difficulties in Information Gathering

• The shared vision problem
• The academic public divide problem
• The everyone knows what we have problem
• The weve already contributed to xx projects
  already problem
• The wed love to but we havent the
  time/people/space problem
• The we cant think about collections until all
  our items are catalogued problem

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Cecilia Why do it?

• To aid resource discovery
• Many uncatalogued resources
• Many unidentified resources
• Resource discovery informs retro-conversion and
  cataloguing priorities
• It remains to be seen how this theoretical
  benefit will work out in practice
• The availability of information about collections
  can help ensure their survival and development

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Cecilia Whats in it for us?

• Collection descriptions
• Disclose information about collections
• Provide an overview of otherwise uncatalogued
  items
• Result in increased use of our resources
• Help to establish priorities for item level
  cataloguing/conservation/digitisation
• Identify potential for collaborations
• Can be used in locally produced publicity,
  leaflets etc

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Cecilia the joined up approach

• Cecilia will be the top-level entry point to
  existing resource discovery tools
• Encore the catalogue of performance sets in
  public and academic libraries
• Music Libraries Online e-lib clump of academic
  music libraries
• Ensemble retro-conversion of academic music
  catalogues

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Cecilia the joined up approach (2)

• Cecilia will link to relevant cross-domain
  resources, e.g.
• The Archives Hub
• AIM25
• Cornucopia
• Archon
• CIMCIM Directory of Musical Instrument Collections

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Cecilia the joined up approach (3)

• The Cecilia database will be made publicly
  available via the PADS website
• PADS maintains a suite of arts related online
  resources
• It will be possible to execute a high level
  search across several resources including Cecilia

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Cecilia Where we are now

• Database contains descriptions of over 1,000
  collections in ca. 300 institutions
• Currently carrying out tests with PADS WebObjects
  software
• Public launch in February / March 2003
• Updates at approximately six monthly intervals

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Blessed Cecilia

• Appear in Visions to All Musicians,
• Appear and Inspire