Building a dataset of BIPOC composers affiliated with Canada & their publishers

Project Overview

For the course Professional Experience, I collaborated with a Librarian at the University of Saskatchewan to develop a resource that identifies Canadian BIPOC composers and their publishers, to be used as a tool and collecting guide for librarians looking to diversify collections of notated music.

I was tasked with creating the dataset. My work entailed:

• reviewing the literature for best practices on ethical inclusive collection development
• selecting existing resources and tools to use to identify BIPOC composers affiliated with Canada
• determining fields to populate in the dataset & made decisions on terms and controlled vocabulary
• identifying composers and their publishers and populating the dataset
• preparing and cleaning the dataset
• communicating with those who had assisted me, helping them access the finished dataset and so on

The final dataset includes three files (which can be downloaded and easily examined in Excel). The dataset comprises:

1. list of composers (with their basic information including their primary genre(s) or composition, publishers or vendors, personal website, etc.)
2. publisher contact information
3. list of resources where I found composers & identified them as BIPOC

This list of composers currently includes 132 composers. This will grow as more community members provide input.

More detailed information on our project is available in the presentation slides we prepared for our presentation at the Music Library Association Conference 2022.

New skills learned or practiced

I learned more about identifying vendors of printed music (scores, lead sheets, sheet music, etc.) that fit specific music collection development goals. For example, often in music librarianship, similar to special collections librarianship, you need to use a variety of smaller vendors as well as larger vendors to add to your collection. Vendors I reached out to find collections or lists of works by BIPOC composers include the classical print music specialist store Leading Note in Ottawa and an online sheet music vendor specializing in choral and band music and arrangements, J.W. Pepper Sheet Music.

Research on new methods for developing collections to improve diversity has highlighted the importance of identifying and using a variety of alternatives to traditional collection development tools to seek out materials (Lehner-Quam, 2021; Manuell et al., 2019; Stone, 2020). “Intentionality in collection development requires also being intentional about the tools used to find and acquire diverse materials” (Lehner-Quam, 2021). My practise was also influenced by the thinking-outside-the-box approach advocated by my instructor for a professional development course on music collection development, Lisa Hooper, when developing collections that reflect local needs and are useful and relevant to increasingly diverse user groups.

So, beyond looking at conventional vendors for works by BIPOC composers, I included searching for composers in material prepared by community or arts organizations, such as Native Women in the Arts (NWIA) and the Prime Mover Theatre Company. Like Lehner-Quam and others have advocated, I intentionally searched for a breadth of potential resources to identify BIPOC composers affiliated with Canada. Ranging from online lists by organizations working toward increasing the visibility of music written by composers from underrepresented groups to radio station blog posts promoting Black composers to Performing arts organizations’ news on BIPOC artistic development programs to a music teachers’ association conference focussing on musical diversity. The potential resources I identified also included individuals, organizations, and groups to reach out to directly. I enjoyed these aspects of my work very much.

I also learned how to contact and communicate effectively with music score vendors and the best ways to reach out to peers in music librarianship for help—for example, identifying which listservs are best to use, addressing questions to association committees or working groups, and taking advantage of existing connections in the profession.

I improved my critical thinking and information evaluation skills relating to the complexities and ethical issues when classifying and identifying the ethnicity or race of professionals (composers). This included the ethics of identifying composers as part of a racialized group without evidence they identify as part of said group and evaluating existing lists of BIPOC composers for transparency.

Concerning music cataloguing, I practised identifying and applying terms for a music work’s genre and instrumentation using best practices for LCGFT and LCMPT. I had used these controlled vocabulary tools in a metadata project in LIBR 509 and again in more detail in a professional development course on music cataloguing I completed through ALA.

Problems/Issues encountered

In the presentation slides, I discuss challenges I faced centred on the ethics of inclusive collecting --when attempting to identify and classify composers using ethnicity, race, or nationality markers and when evaluating existing lists of BIPOC composers.

Compounding these challenges was that my literature review resulted in few sources of use, despite expanding my search to include other arts disciplines (theatre, film, visual arts, interdisciplinary arts, etc.) and even humanities. The MLA Collection Development Committee chair told me little research has been done on my topic and that it was not surprising that I found very little.

Including information on composers’ instrumentation also proved challenging because some composers write for too great a variety of instrumentations. So, I decided not to worry about using accurate controlled vocabulary from LCMPT to label instrumentation. Users of the resource can look up more detailed information on instrumentation as they wish.

References

Genre/Form Task Force and Vocabularies Subcommittee, & Cataloging and Metadata Committee. (2019). Best Practices for Using LCGFT for Music Resources (Version 1.2; p. 12). Music Library Association. http://cmc.blog.musiclibraryassoc.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2019/07/BestPracticesforUsingLCGFT_Music_1.2_20190708_revURLs.pdf

Hooper, L. (2021, March). Introduction to Music Collection Development: Tools and Resources [Course materials]. ALA ELearning. https://ecourses.ala.org/mod/page/view.php?id=54242

Lehner-Quam, A. (2021). Diversifying and Transforming a Public University’s Children’s Book Collection: Librarian and Teacher Education Faculty Collaboration on Grants, Research, and Collection Development. Collection Management, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/01462679.2021.1958400

Manuell, R., McEntee, K., & Chester, M. (2019). The Equity Collection: Analysis and transformation of the Monash University Design Collection. Art Libraries Journal, 44(3), 119–123. https://doi.org/10.1017/alj.2019.16

Shaffer, A. (2015). Genre, Form, and Medium of Performance Terms in Music Cataloging. [Presentation]. OLA Pre-Conference, Eugene, Oregon. http://nwcentral.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Music-Genre-Form.pdf

Stone, S. M. (2020). Whose Play Scripts Are Being Published? A Diversity Audit of One Library’s Collection in Conversation with the Broader Play Publishing World. Collection Management, 45(4), 304–320. https://doi.org/10.1080/01462679.2020.1715314

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