Describing Music Materials 3rd edition revised and enlarged

Citation

Hannabuss, S. (1999), "Describing Music Materials 3rd edition revised and enlarged", Library Review, Vol. 48 No. 3, pp. 330-331. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.1999.48.3.330.2

It has been a long time since I read a book on cataloguing with such a mixture of pleasure and sheer admiration. When I was a cataloguer (in the halcyon days before becoming an academic) I rarely, if ever, catalogued music in anger; for the simple reason that they′′ wouldn′t let me. I never objected, as in those days I couldn′t distinguish between a symphony and a cadenza, a concerto and a divertimento. I looked on colleagues who could catalogue music with something approaching awe. Had Professor Smiraglia′s manual been available then, I could have catalogued with confidence and accuracy. This work is a model of clarity, detailed explanation, and excellent examples. A non‐specialist could catalogue from this manual with ease. The depth in which the subject is covered would only be required by very large collections, but I feel the manual could be adapted to smaller collections with little difficulty.

Like any good academic, Professor Smiraglia acknowledges his debt to his music cataloguing students in his university (Long Island). I read this with some sadness. I have had little difficulty keeping the cataloguing flag flying in my own library school, but simply do not have the time in my Cataloguing Systems module to cover music to this depth ‐‐ and I wonder how many of my colleagues in other schools where cataloguing is still taught at all, would have the time also?