Music Research and Reference on the Internet

This guest-authored column represents a first: the only "Alert Collector" column on the topic of music. Generalists working in libraries of all types and sizes often find questions about music daunting. I conducted a quick search in the Library Literature and Information Sciences database and found a paucity of recent articles on Internet music resources (or for that matter, on music resources in general) for the nonspecialist. Consequently, King's article is a valuable addition to the literature, alerting collection development and reference librarians to free Internet resources for music. It covers the kinds of musical information that can be found online, some of the tools and methods used for finding music information (including search engines and subject directories), information on copyright and on finding sheet music and song lyrics, various kinds of free databases, and an overview of some of the promising work being done in developing Music Information Retrieval (MIR) systems. The column is based on a presentation King gave at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the Oregon Library Association. Music is a personal as well as a professional interest for this issue's guest columnist. King has sung in various choruses. She has also performed with regional opera companies and musical theatre groups. Additionally, she has worked in a large sheet music store. She has developed two subject guides for music: "Music," a general research guide (osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/research/ srg/mus.htm) and "Music Internet Sites," a guide to Web sites useful for music research (osulibrary.oregonstate. edu/research/srg/mus2.html). Since 1999, King has served as a reference and instruction librarian at Oregon State University's (OSU) Valley Library. She is a Social Sciences/Humanities librarian with an additional assignment as Government Information librarian. One of her current assignments is to serve as the team leader of a task force that is developing a new virtual reference chat service for OSU. She has worked in and trained other librarians for L-Net, a statewide virtual reference service. King has written or coauthored articles on topics as diverse as cooperative reference desk scheduling and support of scholarship through a library faculty organization. She is a member of RUSA and ALA's Government Documents Round Table. She also serves on the Bibliography Committee of the Anthropology and Sociology Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries. At the state level, she chairs the Documents Interest Group of Oregon, a roundtable in the Oregon Library Association.--Editor General reference librarians often find music questions very challenging. For a librarian with little or no musical training, the very language of music can present a barrier. When asked for help finding songs or sheet music, information about composers or copyright, or (most terrifying of all) to identify a hummed or whistled tune, many reference librarians are uncertain where to begin. This uncertainty--along with libraries with small or inadequate reference collections in music, and the rapid growth of digital reference "chat" services--highlights the importance of accessing quality online searching tools and information-rich Internet sites. This column will explore some of the free online assistance available to public or academic reference librarians faced with music reference questions. It will also discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of using Internet tools, examine some of the inadequacies of the free Internet when faced with questions on copyrighted music, and provide examples of some resources to be found online. It will not, however, give any tips on locating music file sharing sites or downloading CDs. Subscription databases and utilities are also excluded, as these are already well described in the library and music literature; only free and open information available to anyone with an Internet connection will be discussed. …