Dear friends and colleagues,

I am writing to inform you about a project that I am promoting for the indexing of programs and other performance records. Most of you who will receive this message are already somewhat familiar with the project. To those of you who will receive this message without warning I will provide some background below. If after reviewing this introduction to the project you do not wish to receive any further messages about it please let me know and I will remove your name from this list. I am making this preliminary contact because I believe you will be interested, someone else has suggested that I contact you, and/or your institutions may have large collections of concert programs. In the same regard, if you are aware of someone else that might be interested in following this project, please have them contact me.

Please note: this message is not about the IAML Working Group for Archives and the “RIAM”* project. This is a new and different project.

Some Background (I recommend that everyone read this, even if you are already familiar with the project, it has some important current updates and revisions):

The idea for the project evolved from presentations and conversations at the IAML Périgueux 2001 meeting. After the conference I spent some time in London visiting with Paul and Chris Banks. We developed a preliminary data structure for a prototype database. When I got back to BYU in fall 2001 I submitted a proposal for a mentoring grant that would enable me to hire students to help develop the prototype database. In January 2002 I was awarded the grant ($15,000). I am now in the stage of programming the database structure. I expect to have it ready for data entry via the Internet by early to mid April. The students working with me under the mentoring grant will help build a substantial body of sample entries.

Since January I have been in touch with a number of persons who have expressed an interest in participating with the project. The contacts include: Jane Gottlieb who is very eager to index the Juilliard programs soon for their centennial, Pam Thompson from the Royal College of Music in London, Rupert Ridgewell who is representing the British Library in a major project currently under evaluation by the UK Library Trust, Florence Hayes from the National Library of Canada, Ray White from the Library of Congress, Annalisa Bini at the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Rome, and John Bewley at SUNY Buffalo. At the recommendation of John Roberts I am also contacting another potentially interested person in Russia. I have not yet heard back from them. The Lubranos also told me about a private collector that they are quite certain will want to participate. This private contact has apparently devoted a good deal of his life to the task of collecting programs from all over the world, even South America. So, there is clearly a great deal of international interest in the project.

It is my hope that we will be able to devote a session to the project at the Berkeley 2002 IAML meeting. The mentoring grant that I received included travel funds to bring 2 or 3 students to the Berkeley meeting (at this point it looks like only 2 will attend). I anticipate that they would each take 10 to 15 minutes to introduce different aspects of the project. I also hope that time will be available for interested professional librarians and musicologist to make contributions to the session. At this point I do not have names or topics for the additional presenters, but I am sure we can put together an excellent session.

I have asked John Roberts about the possibility of establishing a working group in IAML to manage the project in the long term. He has indicated that the IAML Council should be able to consider such a vote at the Berkeley meeting. Based on the general enthusiasm I am getting from members of IAML, I anticipate that working group will be approved.
At the present, the project does not have a formal sponsor other than Brigham Young University. We are developing a prototype Internet database and system of data entry. We plan to correspond with other existing and developing projects and endeavor to build a consensus for the data structure, or at least develop measures that will ensure compatibility among systems. It is my hope that what we develop will receive wide acceptance and evolve to an internationally supported resource.

As I mentioned above, we are beginning to build the Internet database. It should be ready for data entry sometime in early to mid April. We invite comment and participation from all interested parties. I created this mailing list in an effort to facilitate such communications. I have also created a web site where I plan to post information about the progress of the project. The URL for this web site is: http://music.lib.byu.edu/ProgramsProj/ProgProj.html Here are some preliminary goals and aspirations we have set to help guide the project:

Goals: Establish an international project for indexing of musical performances. Establish this project by building a coalition among existing projects and other similar projects currently under development. Enable direct data entry and free online searching via the Internet. Build a broad base of participants including existing and developing parallel projects; independent librarians, archivists, scholars, and students; and other scholarly and musical organizations such as American Musicological Society, International Musicological Society, Society of Dance History Scholars, etc.
Sources of performance information: Programs (including circulars and advertisements), libretti, press reviews and announcements, almanacs, annotations in performance materials, The focus will be on primary sources. The role of secondary published chronologies will need to be evaluated. The project will initially focus on programs.

Search capabilities: artist, role, title, genre, theater/hall, city, composer, librettist, choreographer, scene designer, source of plot, date of performance, world premier, and other premiers. Enable report generation of chronologies of theaters/halls, artist careers, interpretations of a given role, migrations and performance frequency profiles of works, chronologies of musical organizations.

Graphic and media enhancements: Links to scanned images of original documents such as programs. For modern performances provide links to audio and/or video excerpts.

Database design: Relational structure with eight main files: 1) Personal Names, 2) Institutional Names, 3) Works [with sub-tables for genre and roles], 4) Performances, 5) Bibliography of Performance Sources, 6) Bibliography of Authority Sources, 7) an online directory of participating institutions, and 8) links to collection level descriptions in the “RIAM” database. The data structure as it is currently proposed is posted on the project’s web site. If you are interested please examine it and send in your comments.

Many of these files will be considered authority files and will be shared with the “RIAM” database. It is my hope to develop a system of authority files that is compatible with existing national and international standards. For example, I anticipate that the database system will be able to import data from the Library of Congress Authority Files and other major online authority sources. I also hope to work closely with the IAML Working Group on the Exchange of Authority Data.

We are developing the database on a Macintosh G4 running OS X Server (a UNIX system). The database software is MySQL. The application server is WebObjects 5.1. This is the same hardware and software that we used to develop the “RIAM” database. It can be viewed at http://msc.lib.byu.edu.

*(Some in IAML are not happy with the RIAM acronym currently used by the working group on archives. They rightfully feel the use of an “R” acronym is inappropriate for a project that does not yet have official sponsorship of IAML. We are in the process of changing it, but at this moment I do not have an alternative)