Library Support for Africana Studies
November 29, 2000
» Return to Cluster Review Index
General
The Creative Arts Cluster includes external reviews for the Music Department, the Film/Video component of Modern Culture and Media, the Visual Art Department and the David Winton Bell Gallery. Library support of the creative disciplines is characterized by a greater than average reliance on non-print formats, collected both as records of past achievements and as inspiration for new and original work by faculty and students.
Notes on Specific Programs
Music
» Subject specialist: Carol Tatian (x33999, Carol_Tatian@brown.edu)
» Current subject specialist: Edwin Quist (x33999, Edwin_Quist@brown.edu )
The Library is committed to supporting the Music Department programs at Brown
University through our collections and our physical plant. We maintain, in
the Orwig Music Building, a thriving, welcoming library which provides the
materials needed for music research as well as the space and facilities in
which to use them. When classes are in session, it is not unusual for over
three-hundred students to come into the Music Library each day. Because we
have a subject specific library located in the same building as our major
constituency, the Music Department, the Music Library staff are in constant
contact with the music faculty and students and can quickly respond to their
needs.
In support of the Music Department programs, the desired level of collecting in most aspects of the discipline is Research. The Library music allocation in 1999-2000 was over $74,000 which includes the purchase of music materials in all formats: books, periodicals, scores, recordings, manuscript facsimiles, CD-Roms, DVDs and videos. That does not include the price of electronic materials, which is purchased with other library funds (approximately $10,000 this year for music products). The Music Library has a collection of 150 periodical subscriptions in print and over 50 electronic periodicals, 25,000 monographs, 22,000 scores and 40,000 sound recordings and multi-media items, and we add approximately 5,000 new items each year. In addition, the Library subscribes to electronic resources that are specific to music research, most of which were instituted within the last two years: the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Online, which is full text; three indexes which list periodical articles solely for music journals; and thirty-two indexes which contain music citations. Also, the updated Orwig Music Library web page gives access to nine electronic music journals (full text) and to ten excellent music research sites on the web specifically chosen by the Music Librarian for the use of our faculty and staff. These electronic resources are also available to our users from their computers in their dorm rooms or, indeed, anywhere in the world by using the proxy server. Bibliographic Instruction sessions given by the Music Librarian regularly integrate print and electronic resources.
Expenditures over the past six years are listed below. In addition, the library has spent approximately $10,000 on electronic resources specifically for music this year. Expenditures fluctuate partly because of gift money that comes in at one time and then is spent out and partly because of the amount of available Library acquistions money.
| Library Expenditures | 1994/95 | 1995/96 | 1996/97 | 1997/98 | 1998/99 | 1999/2000 |
| Firm Orders | $ 41,637 | $ 42,200 | $ 44,869 | $ 32,853 | $ 33,730 | $ 37,207 |
| Approvals | $ 13,000 | $ 17,256 | $ 17,711 | $ 16,980 | $ 18,498 | $ 18,035 |
| Serials | $ 15,676 | $ 15,485 | $ 15,546 | $ 21,470 | $ 16,014 | $ 18,909 |
| TOTAL EXPENDITURES | $70,313 | $74,941 | $78,126 | $71,303 | $68,242 | $74,151 |
The Ph.D program in Ethnomusicology is well supported through our budget
allocation. In addition to the material purchased in the M (Music) classification
of Library of Congress, we also regularly purchase in Ethnology (GN in the
LC classification), Folklore (GR and GT in the LC classification) and area
studies (D-F in the LC classification). To also meet the needs of our Ethno
faculty and students, Music Library staff maintain a special database for
the Ethnomusicology audio and media collections. All ethno CDâs, LPâs, cassettes
and videos are housed together and shelved by a special numbering system that
groups the material by geographical area or region, which is how ethnomusicologists
study music. We also maintain an Ethnomusicology Archive to hold primary sources
such as field tapes, field notes, oral history, etc., done by Ethnomusicology
faculty and students at Brown.
Since the last external review for the Music Department in 1994, there have
been a number of areas strengthened in the Music Library in response to changes
in technology and in the focus of the music faculty. The first area is the
aforementioned subscriptions to electronic resources. This is an area that
will continue to grow as more and more material becomes available online,
and one that the Library is committed to providing for our users since it
provides easy access to material and, in some cases, full text capabilities.
The second area is our continued response to changes in faculty research needs;
in the last six years that has included strengthening the areas of musical
theater and song, African jazz music in Brazil, and the immigration of musicians
from Germany during the Third Reich. The third area is in support of the M.A.
in computer music and multimedia. This field is mushrooming and the Music
Library is now collecting and will continue to collect at the Research level
to provide the needed support for the revitalized Masters program.
We continue to support, at the Research level, all the other activities of the Music Department by consistently collecting the music materials needed by our users on all levels. That means purchasing specific material for music courses in all formats, purchasing and providing the most up-to-date reference material in print and online, and purchasing and providing music scores for our performers. (The Library regularly binds all music scores in hard cover before they come to the Music Library so they can stand on our shelves and stand up to the use they receive.) In addition to acquisitions selected by the Music Librarian, music materials requested by our users are also purchased. Music faculty requests are given first priority, but graduate and undergraduate students needs have high priority also and are purchased as quickly as possible.
The Brown University Library is part of the Boston Library Consortium and the Music Library is a member of the BLC Music Group. In 1999 we came to an agreement on Cooperative Resource Sharing in Music. Our goal is "to coordinate the comprehensive acquisition of published music written by a preselected group of contemporary composers who have attained a certain prominence and critical recognition as Îimportant,â but who have not achieved a canonic status that would guarantee the widespread collecting of their works in many or all of the BLC music collections and are considered as presently underrepresented in the BLC libraries." Each library has chosen a number of composers whom we have agreed to collect comprehensively to ensure their music is located in one BLC-member library and available to all other BLC members. Brown has chosen seven contemporary composers (Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Giya Kancheli, Luigi Nono, Kaija Saariaho, Morton Subotnick, Peteris Vasks) who are of most interest to our own faculty and has agreed to be the library that collects comprehensively for those composers. The Music Group has focused on collecting music scores but each library has the option of also collecting the recordings of their works. Brown has elected to collect both scores and recordings for our seven composers in support of this cooperative purchasing project.
Since its inception, the Music Library has been the recipient of many significant donations that contribute to the growth and strength of our collections. Some of the most recent are worth mentioning.
In the Spring of 1999, the CDâs from the collection of the late Joseph E. Smith of Winston-Salem, NC, were given to Brown University by his brother, Ralph C. Smith. There are approximately 6,000 classical CDâs and the breadth of the collection is astounding; many of the CDâs were purchased in Europe and were not available in this country, and there are also a number of Russian imprints that could not be purchased here. Much of the collection has already been cataloged and the rest of the CDâs are represented on Josiah as "in-process" records so we can quickly identify and catalog any CD needed by a library user.
This Spring, the Music Library received a gift of $8,500 from Mitchell Wolff, class of 1976, in honor of David Josephson. This gift is to be used specifically towards the purchase of books and scores in Western music for our faculty and students to use for research and study. The first purchase from this gift was for six music manuscript facsimiles needed for courses in manuscript study by David Josephson.
In 1991, Charles E. Taylor, class of 1981, established an endowment to purchase
piano scores in the memory of his grandmother, Esther Kahn Taylor. Although
the original endowment is not recent, it is worth mentioning because the endowment
has been added to annually by Mr. Taylor and, as of last year, was at $31,500.
The funds from that endowment have enabled us to greatly strengthen our piano
scores, one of our most used score collections, on an ongoing basis.
Last year Rosemary Cullen mounted a web page for Rose Subotnikâs Music 133
course, The American Popular Standard and Other American Songs.
Special Collections Support for Music
» Subject Specialist: Rosemary Cullen (x31514, Rosemary_Cullen@brown.edu)
Retrospective Collections
Sheet Music Collection. One of the half-dozen largest collections of
American music in the country, with 500,000 items, of which 150,000 are popular
piano-vocal music, dating from the 18th century to the present day. Holdings
include 18th century titles, over a third of the Wolfe-period titles (1800-1825),
and a fine collection of Confederate imprints. The Collection includes approximately
45,000 titles related to the American popular musical stage. Other notable
sections include African-American related music, silent film music, a very
large collection of band arrangements of popular music, music of the Yiddish-language
stage in America, color lithographs, World War I and II related music, musical
settings of American poetry, and Rhode Island related music. Instrumental
music is largely for piano, but there are interesting sections of music for
other instruments, particularly guitar, banjo, mandolin, and accordion.
One section of the Collection, the African-American
related music, 1850-1920, has been digitized and is available on the web.
Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays. Music
resources in the Harris Collection are one of its great strengths. In
all, nearly 30,000 titles in the Harris Collection are either music or music-related,
and include:
- Scores, vocal selections, and librettos of musical plays and operettas, dating from the mid-19th century to the present day.
- Collections of popular and folk music, dating from the 18th century, and including a great many currently published folios of the songs of popular composers and performers, often related to recordings
- Hymnals, both with and without musical notation, dating from the 17th century, and including many examples of Pennsylvania German imprints as well as an interesting selection of hymnals issued in the 20th century by small fundamentalist denominations in the West, South, and Midwest.
- Songsters, dating from the 18th century, held in particular strength, and including 40 pre-1820 exemplars otherwise unrecorded.
- Manuscripts of scores and libretti from the turn-of-the-century Yiddish musical stage in New York, many never published.
- Broadsides
holdings include slip ballads (song sheets) from the 19th century, and many
thousands of texts of popular and religious music, many with tunes cited.
Music in Other Collections: There are nearly 8,200 cataloged titles of music in Special Collections, as listed in Josiah. This does not include sheet music, many of the works in the University Archives, and holdings in recently acquired collections such as the Kirk Alcohol Collection.
McLellan Lincoln Collection. The Lincoln Collection includes extensive holdings of civil war music and music related to Lincoln, the assassination, and the abolitionist movement. Included are sheet music, songsters, broadsides, and vocal collections.
Anne
S. K. Brown Military Collection. Music in the Anne S. K. Brown Collection
is largely made up of 19th century illustrated covers depicting military scenes,
units, and individuals.
Brown University Archives. Music in the Archives consists of many songs
and instrumental music related to the University, records and memorabilia
of musical societies and musical events, and departmental records relating
to the study and teaching of music. There are also theses, dissertations,
and honors papers on music. Web site for theses
and dissertations
General Rare Book Collections. Sections of musical materials are found
in most of the subject collections in Special Collections. Collections with
sections of music included the Kirk Alcohol Collection (temperance and drinking
songs), John Hay Collection (settings of Hay's poetry to music), Wandering
Jew, Napoleon, and Morse Whaling Collections.
Formats:
Recordings. The Harris Collection includes several hundred older recordings,
primarily of American folk music and theatre music. There are general collections
of 78 recordings, primarily jazz and popular music. There are also recordings
in the University Archives.
Piano Rolls. The Music Department's collection of piano rolls was consolidated with that of Special Collections some years ago; holdings consist of approximately 200 items, which, depending upon condition, are playable on a machine owned by the University.
Current Acquisitions in Special Collections
Sheet Music Collection. Sheet music is acquired primarily by gift; each year brings several collections, typically personal collections by the carton load. Since the Collection is so extensive, and since some of it (primarily 19th century piano and piano-vocal music) is unsorted, it is not considered necessary to acquire by purchase, except in unusual cases. Specific instances in which music is purchased include: Wolfe period music; Confederate imprints; 18th centuy American music; African-American related music; Yiddish-language music; Rhode Island music. Over the past five years, by estimate we have spend $500 per year on sheet music, primarily for purchases of groups of material.
Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays. Contemporary vocal scores are acquired primarily through a wide-ranging approval arrangement. Play libretti, similarly, are acquired through standing order and approval plans. These arrangements are supplemented by firm orders as necessary. Each year, approximately $2300 is expended on the Library's standing order arrangement for vocal scores; in addition, approximately $1000 is expended for play libretti, reference works, serials, hymnals, songsters, and other music related materials.
Other Collections. Music materials are acquired, as appropriate, for
other Special Collections as well. Examples are temperance songsters acquired
for the Kirk Collection, and military music acquired for the Anne S. K. Brown
Collection, and Lincoln funeral music acquired for the McLellan Lincoln Collection.
Continuing commitment:
As one of the Library's most notable collections of record, the Harris Collection
is maintained at a comprehensive level, through a combination of endowed funds
and Library appropriation. Similarly, the Sheet Music Collection, owing to
its size and national prominence, is a focus of continuing support. For the
same reasons, it continues to attract regular, substantial donations of material.
Other subject collections routinely acquire music as appropriate, with endowed
funds and Library appropriation support. Most of the music acquired for these
collections is antiquarian in nature.
FILM/VIDEO (MCM)
» Subject Specialist: Stephen L. Thompson (x33581, Stephen_L_Thompson@brown.edu)
» Current subject specialist: Rosemary Cullen (x31514 Rosemary_Cullen@brown.edu )
As for other areas in the University focussed largely on creative production, studio work, and the like, e.g., creative writing or dance, the film/video component of Modern Culture and Media only receives a moderate amount of resource support from the Library. Much of the energy in such courses and programs is naturally directed towards making the stories, dances or films, rather than on studying them. However, such resources that are acquired in traditional and electronic formats, including monographs, journals, reference sources, and electronic databases and periodicals, for the departments out of which these programs grow are undoubtedly used to some extent by these students. The major in Art-Semiotics, for instance, requires four visual practice courses, while the major in MCM encourages work in up to three production-oriented courses. Those in German, Italian, and French might involve at least one or two courses. Currently, there are around eight offerings related to film/video production in the Course Announcement bulletin.
The Library does, in fact, have a substantial amount of the historical, theoretical, analytical, and critical literature devoted to the study of television and motion pictures, as indicated in the Humanities Cluster Review that included MCM. This would include material on screenplays, specific films, genres, and so on, as well as on production and direction, cinematographers and cinematography, other technicians, and screenwriters and screenwriting. Some of these resources are in the form of manuals and guides to the techniques of filmmaking, while others provide interviews, memoirs, and biographies of the practitioners. Also, sound effects recordings are collected by the Library and located in the Orwig Music Library. This is the kind of material that provides more direct support for the courses in film/video production.
Media Services, located in the Sciences Library, has a growing collection of videotapes (all listed in Josiah) and supports services for videotape production, editing, duplication and recording. A new digital lab has opened Spring 2001 for use of faculty and their proxies to aid in the process of bringing analog materials into the digital domain.
VISUAL ART
» Subject specialist: Norine Duncan (x33082, Norine_Duncan@Brown.edu)
To support the undergraduate program in Visual Art, the Library collects materials
about 20th century painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, papermaking, book
arts, photography, digital media, and color theory, at the collecting level
of Basic/Study. Nearly all titles acquired are English-language. The record
of expenditures for the last five years is as follows:
| Library Expenditures | 1994/95 | 1995/96 | 1996/97 | 1997/98 | 1998/99 | 1999/2000 |
| Firm Orders | $ 7,219 | $ 2,870 | $ 4,465 | $ 2,556 | $1,544 | $ 1,747 |
| Approvals | $ 2,000 | $ 3,768 | $ 5,510 | $ 4,706 | $ 4,781 | $ 5,878 |
| Serials | $ 1,458 | $ 1,234 | $ 665 | $ 717 | $ 755 | $ 807 |
| TOTAL EXPENDITURES | $10,677 | $7,872 | $10,640 | $7,979 | $7,080 | $8,432 |
During this period, the Yankee approval plan supplied a steadily increasing proportion of the titles purchased, while firm orders decreased. Visual Art faculty members continue to circulate catalogs and slips, however, returning requests to the subject specialist. Visual Art also benefits from another approval plan with Worldwide Books (approximately $5,000) that is funded under History of Art & Architecture. The plan supplies the major current English-language exhibition catalogs, many of which cover contemporary art.
During this academic year, two courses in photography are being taught for the first time. Fortunately, books on this subject have been collected by History of Art & Architecture in the past. The Library has holdings of more than 3,000 monographs and 38 serials. In the future, the Library will collect more intensively in 20th century photography to support the new Visual Art courses, with more attention to contemporary photography than formerly.
Currently, the Library subscribes to eighteen serial titles for Visual Art. Several new titles in contemporary photography will be added in the near future. A few electronic journals support Visual Art (Representations, Journal of Multimedia History, Postmodern Culture, and Modernism/Modernity). Some of the History of Art & Architecture serial subscriptions are of interest to Visual Art.
The electronic resources of greatest interest to Visual Art include the Grove Dictionary of Art Online, Art Abstracts, and ArtBibliographies Modern. The first is a full-text encyclopedia, while the latter two index and abstract periodical literature.
In recent years, more videos and CD-ROMs have been purchased for Visual Art, always in response to specific requests. Resources to support the study of digital media are meager, as this subject is a relatively recent addition to the curriculum. The Library is willing to purchase more titles in this area, but needs guidance to understand precisely what is needed.
Some Visual Art courses are cross-listed with Modern Culture and Media, and the two departments offer an interdepartmental major in Art-Semiotics, focusing on the cultural role of artistic production. Most purchases on the subjects of semiotic theory, filmmaking, and video production are funded by MCM. The MCM department also collects film and video formats, perhaps duplicating some of the Libraryâs purchases. An effort to coordinate acquisitions should be undertaken. Sound effects recordings are collected by the Library and located at Orwig Music Library. In addition to considerable overlap of interests with MCM, Visual Art also benefits slightly from titles purchased for Computer Science. Many of the resources purchased for History of Art & Architecture are of interest to Visual Art as well.
Visual Art students and faculty have access to the resources of the RISD Library. While Brown collects major publications on contemporary art, RISDâs holdings are more extensive. RISD acquires exhibition catalogs from galleries and smaller museums that Brown does not attempt to cover. RISDâs collection is also stronger than Brownâs in media other than the fine arts, such as decorative and applied arts. Some effort is made not to duplicate expensive purchases if the anticipated usage makes sharing between the two institutions feasible.
Brown participates in a Boston Library Consortium agreement on cooperative resource sharing. The goal of the BLC Art Group is to coordinate acquisition of exhibition catalogs that feature the work of women artists. Brown allocates $500 annually to cover 20th century Italy, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Nine other institutions have committed between $500 and $1000 each annually to cover other geographic areas and time periods.
Visual Art faculty and students have access to approximately 280,000 slides and 38,500 photographs and reproductions in the Art Slide Library. On a weekly schedule, slides are shot in-house to satisfy the demand for new images. Electronic catalog records exist for part of the collection (slightly less than half), and these are searchable through the web interface known as Anita. There is a pressing need for digitization of the images themselves, as well as for software and hardware to facilitate their display in the classroom and on the web. Visual Arts faculty rank the effort to digitize slide holdings (and/or to acquire other digital images) as a high priority.
The Art Slide Libraryâs collection grows on average by 7,500 slides annually, including purchases and gifts as well as in-house production. Exhibitions in the David Winton Bell Gallery provide an opportunity to shoot original slides directly of works of art; a renewed effort to build the collection in this manner is planned. Vendors of slides of contemporary art offer spotty coverage, and extra effort needs to be made to obtain slides from galleries and directly from practicing artists. Two major vendors with subscription plans that were used in the past to acquire contemporary art slides are no longer in business.
Mounted photographs and reproductions from the Art Slide Library circulate to students for class assignments.
Special Collections Support for Visual Art
» Subject Specialist: Rosemary Cullen (x31514, Rosemary_Cullen@brown.edu)
The John Hay Library holds, and continues to acquire, materials in Special Collections that provide support for Visual Arts. While retrospective holdings of fine printing, illustrated books, bindings, papermaking, and works of art in various formats are of primary importance for the study of the history of art, they are also useful to studio artists in a variety of ways. They furnish examples of virtually every technique of artistic production; they provide information about materials and methodologies; and perhaps most importantly for students, they serve as sources of ideas and inspiration. Special Collections holdings that may be considered most important for Visual Art are:
The Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays includes examples of contemporary fine printing and artists' books that are used by classes in bookmaking, printmaking, papermaking, and related studies. The Library's online catalog has nearly 1,500 titles with subjects such as artists' books or concrete and visual poetry, primarily dating from the past 25 years, and representing a wide variety of printers and techniques. Also acquired are reference works, exhibition catalogs, and serials in support of fine printing. Detailed information about holdings is available on the Harris Collection's web site on Fine Printing.
The Broadsides Collection acquires fine printing in the same manner
as the Harris Collection. In addition to regularly published works, Broadsides
includes a considerable amount of fine printing ephemera, including publishers'
announcements and flyers, and book club and publishers' invitations, cards,
and the like. Detailed information about holdings is available on the Harris
Collection's web site on Broadsides.
The general Rare Book Collections are added to regularly in areas that
complement the holdings of the Harris Collection.
The Dard Hunter Collection on Papermaking is added to regularly, with both current and antiquarian titles being acquired. The Collection includes most of the works printed or written by papermaker, printer, and paper historian Dard Hunter, as well as works by his associates in the Roycroft shop.
Support for continuing acquisitions for Special Collections comes from a combination of endowed funds and Library appropriation, with the bulk of purchases made on endowed funds. Annual acquisitions expenditures for the collections mentioned above are estimated to be as follows:
| Harris Collection | $10,000 |
| Broadsides | $1,500 |
| Rare Book Collection | $7,500 |
| Papermaking | $400 |
| Totals (estimates) |
$19,400 |
In recent years, the archives of several fine press publishers have been acquired by Special Collections. The archives of Gary Young's Greenhouse Press includes printer's proofs, galleys, manuscripts, correspondence between authors, designers, and printers, and business records. Similarly, the archives of Providence's own Burning Deck Press (which the Library is still in the process of acquiring) document the activities of letterpress printers and book designers over a period of forty years. Both collections, and other related holdings, are of interest to contemporary artists and designers in that they illuminate current practice in the realities of fine print production. The archives of one of Rhode Island's leading private presses, Third & Elm Press, include an earlier gift from the press' founder, Alexander Nesbitt, of type specimen books.
The Koopman Collection, formed as a laboratory collection for the study of the art of the book, includes original artwork upon which book illustrations were based, many examples of blind- or gilt-stamped bindings, specimen leaves, William Morris textiles, and the publications of some of the most influential private presses, including Ashendene, Doves, and Kelmscott.
The Sheet Music Collection includes lithographic covers and color lithographs; vast holdings of 20th century illustrated sheet music covers, featuring airbrush art, distinctive lettering, collage techniques, cartoons, and photography.
The Michael J. Ciaraldi Collection consists of nearly 60,000 comic books and graphic novels, and related works from the past 25 years, notably featuring the productions of small and non-mainstream artists and companies. Many review publications and works on the comics publishing industry are included.
The Lucy Truman Aldrich Collection of Rare Illustrated Children's Books and the Pillar Collection of Children's Literature hold a total of 3,500 titles, including both classics of children's book illustration and a notable collection of recent illustrated children's books, including many Caldecott prize/honors winners.
Many of the collections include examples of photography, such as glass-plate
negatives, daguerreotypes (most notably, the renowned Hartshorn daguerreotype
of Edgar Allan Poe), ambrotypes, albums of photographs, and fine printing
illustrated with photography.
DAVID WINTON BELL GALLERY
» Subject specialist: Norine Duncan (x33082, Norine_Duncan@Brown.edu)
Staff of the Bell Gallery have convenient access to the Art Slide Library collections, including a reference book collection of some 600 titles. Occasional requests for visual resources and reference books to support the galleryâs work are fulfilled.
When permissions can be obtained to photograph works of art on exhibition in the gallery, the Art Slide Library benefits from the opportunity to shoot original slides and to add unique items to its collection.