Scores and Recordings.
Olga Buth · Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) · 1975
As A PREFACE to a consideration of the existing classification schemes for scores and recordings, it is important to establish that the immediate future may include a national network of resource centers and computerized bibliographic control of present library collections of all sizes. In less than ten years, a patron may sit do~vnat a terminal in Columbus, Ohio, and determine that the score he needs to study is in a library in Salem, Oregon. Library automation on this scale presupposes standardization which in turn emphasizes the need to evaluate present systems of bibliographic description and classification. The object of this article is to identify the elements of the major classification schemes for shelf arrangement of scores and sound recordings now in use, and to evaluate them as they apply to the two main groups of library collections: those organized for the researcher and those organized for the browser. The economic factors of automation and the application of industrial management techniques to libraries clearly indicate that concepts for libraries may become polarized. The general, "supermarket " approach which may serve well a casual browser using a smaller collection is anathema for the researcher. Browsing of the "serendipity " type is indeed of value to the researcher but if one credits the evidence of numerous indexing and abstracting services, his first priority is the most precise identification possible of material directly relevant to his needs. Webster's Seventh Nezl Collegiat ~ Dictiona ~ defines classification as "a systematic arrangement in groups or categories according to established criteria. " To facilitate the use of a library, a collection is generally arranged in an ordered manner to allow the user to bypass the catalog and go directly to the shelves. Success is determined by the frequency with which he can do this. Classification schemes have been devised for this purpose. There are some artificial divisions of materials based on physical,