Music CD’s – Where Are They?
How would you organize thousands of music CDs?
By album title? By composer? By age?
Perhaps you would try the record store way. Of course there are few record stores left, but the stores had a general and very practical approach. Their collections would be organized into music genres: Rock & Roll, Jazz, Opera, Country, and so forth. Within each genre, they would arrange the music by performer or composer, or a combination of both.
At some point in the distant past, record stores even had listening stations, where you could enter a small private booth or area (occasionally like a telephone booth – oops, remember those?) and they would spin a vinyl record for you, piping the music into the booth/area. Probably you had headphones in the booth. Very high tech in the 1960’s!
Here at Mercer County Library System, we own over 15,000 unique music compact discs titles. So just like any store, we have to have a method that lets you find a CD on the shelf and to browse the CDs in some meaningful way.
Our solution – not unique by any means – is to basically divide the collection into two big areas
CHILDREN’S MUSIC
Children’s Music has almost 1,300 titles. The library puts a special label on each CD. We call this the call number. Here are some examples with the call number in the upper right corner:
As you can see, all children’s CDs have call numbers that start with JCD and end with CHILDRENS.
Between JCD and CHILDRENS, we put 4 letters that come from the title, or composer, or performer.
Branches will usually put the children’s CDs in order by call number. You can browse and find your favorites in the children’s area.
ADULT MUSIC
Adult music is more complicated, just as adults are more complicated than children. We have broken down adult music into many genres. Here are some: blues, chamber music, choral music, comedy, country music, folk music, holiday music, jazz, new age, opera, pop/rock, R&B, rap/hip-hop, reggae, religious, sound tracks from TV or film. And so on!
We also have a separate set of genre categories for music primarily sung in non-English languages and representing music traditions associated with South America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Russia, etc.
Generally, the call number of the CD reflects both the genre and the composer or artist. Some examples will make it very clear. All the adult music call numbers start with CD.
We consider gospel music to be part of the RELIGIOUS genre. WOW in the call number comes from the CD title WOW Gospel 2019.
Music for Christmas, Hanukah, Halloween, and other holidays or festive dates on the calendar will have HOLIDAY at the end of the call number. PERR in the call number reflects the performer, the musical group the Perrys.
The soundtrack from the movie Superfly will have SOUNDTRK as the genre and use the first letters of the film title (“SUPE”) in the call number.
This CD is put out by a Latin American group, Banda de los Muertos, and features Mexican music, so its genre is LATIN. In the call number CD BAND LATIN, BAND is based on the performers, the Banda de los Muertos.
This CD features music from India or with Indic ‘flavor’. The genre is INDIC/BOLLY. We also use this genre for Bollywood films. From CD INDI INDIC/BOLLY, “INDIC” is based on the cd’s title India. The INDIC/BOLLY genre also covers Bollywood music.
ON THE SHELF
At your branch library, the adult CDs are probably grouped first by music genre, as found in the call number, and then by the title/composer/artist in the call number. Some branches may combine some genres into one physical area on the shelf. For example interfiling blues and pop/rock music.
So - can you find it now? No longer feel lost in the music aisle? As the song "Rejoice" says:
So come and rejoice
Come and rejoice
What was lost is found
(Rejoice: written by: Mac Steve and Hector Wayne)
By album title? By composer? By age?
Perhaps you would try the record store way. Of course there are few record stores left, but the stores had a general and very practical approach. Their collections would be organized into music genres: Rock & Roll, Jazz, Opera, Country, and so forth. Within each genre, they would arrange the music by performer or composer, or a combination of both.
At some point in the distant past, record stores even had listening stations, where you could enter a small private booth or area (occasionally like a telephone booth – oops, remember those?) and they would spin a vinyl record for you, piping the music into the booth/area. Probably you had headphones in the booth. Very high tech in the 1960’s!
Here at Mercer County Library System, we own over 15,000 unique music compact discs titles. So just like any store, we have to have a method that lets you find a CD on the shelf and to browse the CDs in some meaningful way.
Our solution – not unique by any means – is to basically divide the collection into two big areas
- Children’s music
- Adult music
CHILDREN’S MUSIC
Children’s Music has almost 1,300 titles. The library puts a special label on each CD. We call this the call number. Here are some examples with the call number in the upper right corner:
As you can see, all children’s CDs have call numbers that start with JCD and end with CHILDRENS.
Between JCD and CHILDRENS, we put 4 letters that come from the title, or composer, or performer.
Branches will usually put the children’s CDs in order by call number. You can browse and find your favorites in the children’s area.
ADULT MUSIC
Adult music is more complicated, just as adults are more complicated than children. We have broken down adult music into many genres. Here are some: blues, chamber music, choral music, comedy, country music, folk music, holiday music, jazz, new age, opera, pop/rock, R&B, rap/hip-hop, reggae, religious, sound tracks from TV or film. And so on!
We also have a separate set of genre categories for music primarily sung in non-English languages and representing music traditions associated with South America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Russia, etc.
Generally, the call number of the CD reflects both the genre and the composer or artist. Some examples will make it very clear. All the adult music call numbers start with CD.
We consider gospel music to be part of the RELIGIOUS genre. WOW in the call number comes from the CD title WOW Gospel 2019.
Music for Christmas, Hanukah, Halloween, and other holidays or festive dates on the calendar will have HOLIDAY at the end of the call number. PERR in the call number reflects the performer, the musical group the Perrys.
The soundtrack from the movie Superfly will have SOUNDTRK as the genre and use the first letters of the film title (“SUPE”) in the call number.
This CD is put out by a Latin American group, Banda de los Muertos, and features Mexican music, so its genre is LATIN. In the call number CD BAND LATIN, BAND is based on the performers, the Banda de los Muertos.
This CD features music from India or with Indic ‘flavor’. The genre is INDIC/BOLLY. We also use this genre for Bollywood films. From CD INDI INDIC/BOLLY, “INDIC” is based on the cd’s title India. The INDIC/BOLLY genre also covers Bollywood music.
ON THE SHELF
At your branch library, the adult CDs are probably grouped first by music genre, as found in the call number, and then by the title/composer/artist in the call number. Some branches may combine some genres into one physical area on the shelf. For example interfiling blues and pop/rock music.
So - can you find it now? No longer feel lost in the music aisle? As the song "Rejoice" says:
So come and rejoice
Come and rejoice
What was lost is found
(Rejoice: written by: Mac Steve and Hector Wayne)
- Karen S., Acquisitions and Cataloging
Comments
Post a Comment