Reference Sources

Reference Sources Veronica A. Wells (bio) Since the last issue on the current state of music librarianship, much has changed and transformed in terms of how we search for information on composers, performers, musical terms, instruments, and other aspects of music. A majority of reference sources are predominantly accessed online, such as Grove Music Online and MGG Online. This has provided opportunities for information creators and publishers to share and disseminate information more easily. While print volumes continue to be published and purchased by libraries and consumers, most users are accustomed to turning to their devices rather than consulting print materials. Other sources that were once essential for conducting music research, such as Duckles's Music Reference and Research Materials: An Annotated Bibliography, are now rarely used. This article will discuss the current state of reference sources in terms of diversity and inclusivity, currency, usability, access, and discoverability and will conclude with some future considerations. DIVERSITY AND INCLUSIVITY Reference sources communicate to our users who and what deserves to be studied, listened to, and performed. Sylvia Yang, et al. state: [R]eference works that perform the act of canonization take up considerable amounts of shelf space, are often expensive, and have the privilege of being featured first at the beginning of the Ms in the Library of Congress Classification System. It is common for these works to require special permission for patrons to check them out, which reinforces their status within the library collection as special and deserving of reverence.1 Philip Ewell,2 Loren Kajikawa,3 Eamon Tewell,4 and others have written extensively on how institutionalized racism is inherent within the study [End Page 66] of music or the practice of librarianship and this is reflected in the reference sources library workers purchase, use, and teach. To address these inequities, library workers are conducting audits, reviewing their collection development policies, and connecting with vendors in order to bring more diversity into their collections.5 Some recent examples of reference sources that attempt to address issues of diversity include: • The Composer Diversity Database: Created by the Institute for Composer Diversity (ICD), the Composer Diversity Database allows searchers to discover composers based on different search filters, including gender, race, sexual identity, residence, and ensemble genre.6 • Spirituals: A Multidisciplinary Bibliography for Research and Performance by Kathleen Abromeit: This comprehensive annotated bibliography features materials from music, literature and poetry, American history, religion, and African American Studies. • Life and Music of Teresa Carreño: A Guide to Research by Anna Kijas: This guide to research includes a main critical point of entry for research on the life and career of Carreño, a Venezuelan-born pianist and composer. While there are more reference sources than ever before that document underrepresented people and cultures, most of the standard reference sources continue to reflect and uplift the canon, and therefore, whiteness. CURRENCY One of the main reasons library workers continue to purchase and teach users how to use reference sources is because they are considered authoritative, but that authoritativeness can be undermined when the reference work becomes more and more outdated or neglects to cover pertinent people or concepts. Online resources can be updated frequently and easily. For example, Oxford Bibliographies employs an update program in which each article is reviewed at least once a year and authors can update their articles at any time. However, with perhaps the exception of Wikipedia, maintaining currency for large reference sources can be a challenge for creators and publishers. [End Page 67] The issue of currency with reference sources can cause frustration with library workers and users alike. In a recent library session for students that were assigned to investigate two musical works and compare and contrast them, I attempted to search for background information on some of their chosen composers in Grove Music Online. Composer Caroline Shaw's entry, at the time of this writing, was last updated in 20157 and flutist and composer Valerie Coleman does not have an entry. There are many more examples of composers and performers who deserve more recognition in our reference sources. On its website, Grove Music Online provides an ongoing list of the entries that are updated or...