Beyond the score: indexing notated music for performance

Abstract

Proceeding from the shift, in the perspective of librarianship, from the centrality of book and library collections to that of the user, the paper intends to explore the informational potential of semantic indexing for notated music, to be considered as a pervasive tool for the organization of an integrated information retrieval service based not only on musical performance but also on fruition. Through a case study, insights will be offered on the practice of indexing notated music in Anglo-Saxon countries through the projects developed by the Library of Congress (LCSH, LCGFT, and LCMPT). Practical proposals will be offered to streamline the retrieval of music resources in the National Library Service by means of the Nuovo soggettario (the Italian New Subject Heading system). After analyzing the information needs of the users of a music library, the authors will propose a FRBRization for SBN OPAC (the Catalogue of the Italian National Library Service), moving from the categorization of Musical Works according to form/genre, and, by exploiting the ‘logical connections’ that link works with related subject entities provided by LRM, they will propose that subject headings may function as a flywheel to enable the transformation of the SBN OPAC into library linked data.