ARCHIVES AND MUSIC LIBRARIES: Introduction

ARCHIVES AND MUSIC LIBRARIES: IntroductionAuthor(s): Inger EnquistSource: Fontes Artis Musicae, Vol. 43, No. 3 (July-September 1996), pp. 231-234Published by: International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres(IAML)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23508209 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 18:52

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres (IAML) is collaboratingwith JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Fontes Artis Musicae.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.38 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 18:52:29 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=iaml

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=iaml

http://www.jstor.org/stable/23508209?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


ARCHIVES AND MUSIC LIBRARIES

Introduction

Inger Enquist (Stockholm, Sweden)*

Ce numéro de Fontes est consacré aux archives, en vue de mettre en lumière la nature

spécifique des documents concernés et de contribuer à améliorer leur traitement et leur

exploitation dans nos collections. Voulant établir un registre d'archives dans les biblio

thèques musicales, le Groupe de projet sur les Archives de l'AIBM (devenu la Branche

des Archives et Centres de documentation) a constaté une grande variété de pratiques et de problèmes dont certains sont décrits dans les articles suivants.

In diesem Fontes-Heit stehen Archivalien im Vordergrund. Es wird versucht, den spezi

ellen Charakter dieses Materials zu beschreiben, um eine Basis für eine bessere Hand

habung und Nutzung der Dokumente in unseren Sammlungen zu finden. Bei dem Bemü

hen, ein Verzeichnis der Archivsammlungen in den Musikbibliotheken zu erarbeiten,

ergaben sich für die AIBM-Projektgruppe für Archivalien (jetzt ein Zweig der Archiv und Dokumentationszentren) eine ganze Reihe von Praktiken und Problemen. Auf einige

von ihnen wird in den folgenden Beiträgen näher eingegangen.

Music archives are housed under many different types of "roofs," ranging from archival institutions and libraries to museums and various private institutions. The

handling of archival materials there varies accordingly; some music archives live a healthy life, while others could certainly be treated better. This is the reason for this special archival issue of Fontes Artis Musicae. We hope that these articles on archives will shed light upon the special character of materials involved, preparing the ground for better handling and use of documents in our collections.

I have sometimes heard colleagues emphasize the difference between litera ture and archives in the following way: Books are deliberately created works, whereas archives originate spontaneously and reflect an activity. Another archi

vist colleague stressed the aspect of intention: The information in books aims at

wisdom, whereas minutes and memoranda (the potential archival documents) rather are intended to result in certain activities.

To me there is something fascinating about archives. Since they vary so much

both in form and content, they are a constant challenge to work with, and they

provide a neverending source of information for research. More than anything,

*Inger Enquist is chair of the IAML Archives and Music Documentation Centres Branch. She is

archivist at the Statens musikbibliotek (The Music Library of Sweden) in Stockholm, working with

archives and documentation.

231



232 FONTES ARTIS MUSICAE 43/3

archival materials give you a certain feeling of presence. Documents reflecting an

activity give you the opportunity to feel you are there in person, taking part in events long since passed.

Archival questions have had a special forum within IAML for more than ten

years, beginning with the Project Group on Archives under the Bibliography Commission. Over the years we have identified some basic problems related to archival materials.

The greatest one seems to be the basic difficulty of getting initial information about archives: Which music archives exist and where are they kept? We need to find a way to register information about music archives. The scope of RISM series

C, the directory of music research libraries, is not wide enough, and the guides to their holdings produced by various types of institutions are, generally speaking, not detailed enough. For successful information retrieval, the registration of an archive needs to be made at least at the fonds level.

Some countries have national registers to archival fonds, but such registers may be difficult to use, unless you happen to know the specific name of the archive in question. But what about searching by subject, you may well ask? Unfortu

nately subject indexing is something that is not, as yet, often applied in the archival field. The nature of archives makes subject access more difficult than it is in books, but it is not an impossible goal.

Once you have located an archive of interest you will need a finding aid to guide you to the correct volume. Finding aids are of different types—inventories, lists, and summary descriptions. The most sophisticated finding aids may include detailed indexes relating to particular types of material, such as letters or sound

recordings. At the other end of the scale, the only access point might be the

receipt which was filled in when documents were delivered to the holding insti tution.

Approaching the task of developing an overall register to music archives, we cannot avoid touching upon a related concern, the individual description of music archives. It would, of course, be easier to compile such a register if we all used the same description system. The main source of information about the various

practices currently being used to deal with music archival materials is derived from a questionnaire sent out in 1987/88 by the IAML Project Group on Archives. This investigation was aimed at gathering information on issues such as acquisi tion, listing and description practices, directories, and access. The resulting national reports provided us with a variety of examples; the reports were summarized and differences in practice identified. While one might have expected to find a main dividing line between countries, it seemed instead to appear between types of institutions. The system for describing archival materials also tends to vary with the type of institution. This is of course difficult to change, since different institutions have different needs. For instance a system used for archives may have to function as an integrated part of a system designed for libraries. In addition to the variety of in-house systems, there are various sets of standards. Those used most frequently today are: AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd ed.); APPM (Archives, Personal Papers, and Manuscripts: a Cataloging Manual by Steven L. Hensen); AMC (.Archives and Manuscripts



ARCHIVES AND MUSIC LIBRARIES 233

Control, the AMC format); and the newly developed ICA (International Council on Archives) standard, the ISAD(G) (General International Standard Archival

Description). Practices for listing contents of archives also vary with the type of institution.

Libraries usually use national cataloguing rules, some even catalogue each sepa rate item, a potentially overwhelming task. Other types of institutions use methods adapted to their specific needs. Then there are those methods used by archival authorities based on arrangement of materials by type of document, which result in record groups and series lists. This forms the basis for the inventory, the

finding aid describing the archive and listing the content. Recently, automated

systems have come into more frequent use in archival institutions. They may function as a catalogue of the archival holdings, and such systems may also store information at different levels. For example, the system may maintain specific inventories and enhance administrative support for the work and intellectual control over the material, through fields recording the processing of documents, needs for conservation, restrictions in access, and so forth.

The most crucial point in dealing with archives is the provenance. The "prin ciple of provenance," which has been in use for more than a century, focuses on the origin of the documents. It states that papers of the same provenance shall be

kept together and not mixed with those of any other provenance. This practice also preserves the relationship between documents; this is important, since single documents may be meaningless by themselves while together they tell a story. Furthermore, as a general principle of archival work, one tries to respect the

original order of documents within an archive, better to reflect the original activity from which they emanate. However, these basic principles may be difficult for some types of institutions to observe. In the IAML survey mentioned above, we found that some libraries take a more practical approach to the material. Materials are sometimes placed where they can best serve the users, even if this means

splitting the archive. Another phenomenon, that I think most of us are familiar

with, is the creation of a so called "archive" by collecting documents of different

provenance about a certain person. The articles in this issue approach archival materials from different directions:

Michael Cook helps us get familiar with archival basics, while Heather MacNeil discusses the problem of subject access to archival fonds. Appraisal is the object of Nils Briibach's focus; Jan Dahlin tells us about the new international standard for

archival description. Turning to the musically specific, Jeannine Barriault and

Stéphane Jean present the description of the music archival fonds at the National

Library of Canada, and Anna Lena Holm lets us know how she manages compos ers' archives in Sweden. Finally, Yola de Lusenet has some thoughts from the

point of view of the European Commission on Preservation and Access. My sincere thanks to all of the authors for their contributions.



234 FONTES ARTIS MUSICAE 43/3

USEFUL LITERATURE

Bureau of Canadian Archivists. Planning Committee on Descriptive Standards.

Subject Indexing for Archives: Report of the Subject Indexing Group. Ottawa: Bureau of Canadian Archivists, 1992.

Cook, Michael. The Management of Information from Archives. Adershot: Gower

Pub., 1986.

Cook, Michael and Margaret Procter. A Manual of Archival Description. 2nd. ed. Adershot: Gower Pub., 1989.

Couture, Carol et al. Les Fondements de la discipline archivistique. Sainte-Foy, Quebec: Les Presses de l'Université de Quebec, 1994.

Describing Archival Materials: The Use of the MARC AMC Format. Edited by Richard Smiraglia. New York: Haworth Press, 1990. Aso published as

Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 11:3/4 (1990).

Dictionary of Archival Terminology: English and French: with equivalents in

Dutch, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish. Edited by Peter Walne. ICA

Handbooks, 3. Munich: K. G. Saur, 1984.

Dollar, Charles M. Archival Theory and Information Technologies: the Impact of Information Technologies on Archival Principles and Methods. Informatics and Documentation Series, 1. Ancona: University of Macerata, 1992.

Franz, Eckhart G. Einführung in die Archivkunde. 4. Aufl. Darmstadt: Wissen schaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1993.

Hensen, Steven L. Archives Personal Papers, and Manuscripts: A Cataloging Manual for Archival Repositories, Historical Societies, and Manuscript Librar ies. 2nd ed. Chicago: Society of American Achivists, 1989.

ISAD(G) General International Standard Archival Description. Adopted by the Ad Hoc Commission on Descriptive Standards, Stockholm, Sweden, 21-23 Janu

ary 1993. Final ICA approved version. Ottawa: 1994.

Kaplan, Hilary A., Maria Holden, and Kathy Ludwig, comps. "Achives Preser vation Resource Review" American Archivist 54 (1991): 502-44. [Annotated bibliography with a final section on journals, electronic bulletin boards, and

databases] Menne-Haritz, Agelika. "Appraisal or Documentation: Can We Appraise A

chives by Selecting Content?" American Archivist 57 (1994): 528-42.

Reilly, James M. Care and Identification of 19th-century Photographic Prints. Rochester NY, Eastman Kodak Co., 1986.

Ritzenthaler, Mary Lynn. Preserving Archives and Manuscripts. Chicago: Society of American Achivists, 1993.

Sahli, Nancy Ann. MARC for Archives and Manuscripts: the AMC Format.

Chicago: Society of Aierican Achivists, 1985.

Schellenberg, Theodore R. The Management of Archives. New York: Columbia

University Press, 1965. Repr.: Washington DC: National Achives and Records Administration, 1988.

Taylor, Hugh A. The Arrangement and Description of Archival Materials. ICA Handbooks, 2. Munich: K. G. Saur, 1980.

Ward, Aan. A Manual of Sound Archive Administration. Adershot: Gower Pub., 1990.

