Sharing News: Early Music Monographs Digitized

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

This is a piece of news that I received via IAML (International Association of Music Libraries) and the MLA (the Music Library Association, an  American organisation).  Copying and pasting shamelessly, because this is news that’s bursting to get out, I offer you this exciting snippet:-

The Music Division of the Library of Congress has launched a new site with scans of approximately 2,000 books on music published before 1800.  The scans were made from microfilmed versions of the books.

https://www.loc.gov/collections/books-about-music-before-1800/about-this-collection/

Karen C. Lund is the Digital Project Coordinator for the Music Division.

Literary Print Cultures – database reviewed

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

One of our network members has spotted a useful review of Literary Print Cultures, in Reference Reviews.  I’m very grateful to be alerted to this.

For your interest, I share details:-

Literary Print Culture: The Stationers’ Company Archive, London

Author: Wenzel, Sarah G11 Bibliographer of Literatures of Europe & The Americas, University of Chicago Library, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Publication info: Reference Reviews ; Harlow  Vol. 32, Iss. 4,  (2018): 3-4.

https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/RR-12-2017-0260 (Published by Emerald Insight, this is also available via Proquest, if your institution subscribes.)

Invaluable Resource: The Stationers Company Archive 1554-1984, by Robin Myers

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

robin myers book coverBy and large, this book is aimed at book and publishing historians – it enumerates the contents of the Stationers’ Company Archive from 1554-1984, at Stationers’ Hall. The compiler, Robin Myers, was for a long time Honorary Archivist there. (She has the status of Liveryman at the Stationers’ Company.)

Not the first attempt at documenting this complex body of material, but certainly the most comprehensive, I commend especially the Preface (xiii-xiv) and Introduction xvii-xxxvii), which gives an overview of the history of the Archive. Significantly, the creation of a proper muniment room in 1949 made visits more convenient for researchers, and also saw the awakening interest of musicologists looking for first London editions by famous composers.

Next, cast your eye over the Contents, and in particular Section I – the Entry Books of Copies & Register Books 1557-1842; Registers of Books Sent to Deposit Libraries 1860-1924; a Cash Book & Copyright Ledger Book 1895-1925; and Indexes of Entry Books 1842-1907 appear between pp.21-30. The Entry Books cover several years at a time for the earliest period, and a couple of years at a time for the era that our project has been covering. As I may have mentioned already, I’m quite interested in the book commencing June 1817, and we find in the listing that the wording, ‘Published by the author and his property’ “begins to appear not infrequently in this volume.” This would seem to imply a greater sense of intellectual property, although there may be another more technical explanation of which I’m not aware!

Much of the rest of the book concerns leases, freedoms, wardens’ vouchers and other documentation which are maybe of little concern to the average musicologist, but it would do no harm to glance through the contents if only so that you know what else is there. A complicated web of documentation of which many of us are blissfully unaware!

Myers, Robin (ed.) The Stationers’ Company Archive 1554-1984 (Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographies, 1990) ISBN 0906795710

The records of the Stationers’ Company are now available as digital images via publisher Adam Matthew: Literary Print Culture: the Stationers’ Company Archive, 1554-2007. As well as the records themselves, there’s also a wealth of background information, including commentary by Robin Myers. You can view a short YouTube video here.

Early American Sheet Music Digital Collection Reviewed

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

library-74038_1920Colleague Dr Brianna Robertson-Kirkland, lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and researcher on various eighteenth and early nineteenth-century humanities projects, is also a member of the Claimed From Stationers’ Hall network.  She has recently reviewed the Library of Congress digital music website, Early American Sheet Music, and you can read her review online in the Royal Musical Association research Chronicle (2018):-

Robertson-Kirkland, B. E., ‘Library of Congress: Early American Sheet Music’

Since  Brianna offers insight into some very pertinent issues about digitised music collections, I’ve added the review to our CFSH Bibliography, which you’ll find here, and also via the index to this blog.

Claimed From Stationers’ Hall: Bibliography

A Video Introduction to the Adam Matthews Digitised Stationers’ Hall Records

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Literary Print Culture: The Stationers’ Company Archive, 1554-2007

Followers of the Claimed From Stationers’ Hall music research network will enjoy this five-minute video about Adam Matthews’ new product.  These are digitised images, rather than text-searchable, but useful and worth a look nonetheless!  There’s interesting commentary from William Alden, Clerk to the Stationers’ Company, and Robin Myers, Archivist Emeritus.