Editorial policy must be examined, and physical properties of each edition must be taken into consideration. In addition to printed music and books about music, with which many librarians feel fairly comfortable, music libraries should stock a reasonable collection of recorded material. Popular music is often available only in recorded form. Lately, however, the growing number of researchers who study this music is causing a reassessment. Local involvement includes not only acquiring items created by area groups, but also being familiar with community music preferences and emphasizing those when selecting materials.
Music provides a good way for community outreach in other ways as well.
This sort of publicity may serve to increase the percentage of the public that realizes that the library has more to offer than is suggested by its stereotypical image of a storehouse of books. We can see that music librarianship is not an activity that simply looks back at the past, but it looks outwards to the community and forwards to the future needs of library patrons. While the maintenance and development of materials is an important activity that must be done by knowledgeable professionals, the encouragement and facilitation of ideas is the real motivation behind music librarianship, as it is behind any branch of the discipline. I believe that this sort of subject expertise could be important as a way to keep libraries relevant as information access becomes easier for the untrained searcher. While people who seek information will generally be able to find it if they know what they are looking for, those who need guidance will come to people who they trust to be able to help them.