Update on SMC from MLA conference
I had the pleasure of hearing a presentation by Jenn Riley at the MLA conference in Pgh a few weeks ago. She spoke about some of the studies and projects they've been working on at Indiana. She also gave an update on the next steps for the SMC. They have made a proposal for a 1-year planning grant (to whom, I don't remember) starting in Oct. 2007. They want to do some user needs studies as well as data provided needs studies (very important - it was so nice to hear her say that "we need to make it easier for data providers to include their collections in the SMC"!!!).
The long term plan includes adding more collections (since the goal is really to make this THE place on the web for sheet music discovery and retrieval), making it easier to use (from the user standpoint as well as the data provider standpoint), and running the harvesting on a more regular schedule. They also are in need of a sustainability plan - not much is able to be done right now because the only people working on it are doing so on a volunteer basis. Funds and staffing are needed in order to make improvements. They also want to provide a de-duping service, which would be extremely useful.
I haven't been able to find the presentation online, but I emailed her and hope that she'll send me a link or the presentation slides themselves.
Update: Wow, that was a quick response! Here's the link to the .ppt:
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/~jenlrile/presentations/mla2007/mla.ppt
It was also very interesting to hear from researchers at the Sheet Music Roundtable session about how they use sheet music in their research and what kinds of information we can get from it. It really struck me that SO much more information is needed by researchers than what we typically provide access to. But since sheet music collections tend not to be a priority for music libraries, it will be difficult to ever be able to provide access to the extent that researchers will find useful. Cover art, illustrations, and advertisements were all brought up as being extremely important in many research endeavors.
The long term plan includes adding more collections (since the goal is really to make this THE place on the web for sheet music discovery and retrieval), making it easier to use (from the user standpoint as well as the data provider standpoint), and running the harvesting on a more regular schedule. They also are in need of a sustainability plan - not much is able to be done right now because the only people working on it are doing so on a volunteer basis. Funds and staffing are needed in order to make improvements. They also want to provide a de-duping service, which would be extremely useful.
I haven't been able to find the presentation online, but I emailed her and hope that she'll send me a link or the presentation slides themselves.
Update: Wow, that was a quick response! Here's the link to the .ppt:
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/~jenlrile/presentations/mla2007/mla.ppt
It was also very interesting to hear from researchers at the Sheet Music Roundtable session about how they use sheet music in their research and what kinds of information we can get from it. It really struck me that SO much more information is needed by researchers than what we typically provide access to. But since sheet music collections tend not to be a priority for music libraries, it will be difficult to ever be able to provide access to the extent that researchers will find useful. Cover art, illustrations, and advertisements were all brought up as being extremely important in many research endeavors.
posted by Amy | 6:50 PM
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