MUSIC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION/
Bibliographic Control Committee
genre/form task force
ANNUAL REPORT
March-June 2009

Members: Beth Flood, chair; Ralph Hartsock, Caitlin Hunter, Marty Jenkins, Mickey Koth, Brooke Lippy, Nancy Lorimer, Mark McKnight, Casey Mullin, Karen Peters, Hermine Vermeij.

Following the annual MLA meeting in February, BCC proposed formation of the MLA-BCC Genre/Form Task Force, which was approved by the MLA Board.  The purpose of this task force is to make suggestions to LC regarding music genre/form/medium terms for inclusion in LC’s genre/form thesaurus and to facilitate communication between LC and the music community regarding the project. 

 The charge of the task force is as follows:

“The MLA-BCC Genre/Form Task Force will review the genre/form and medium of performance lists posted by the LC Policy and Standards Division (PSD) on their genre/form website.  The group will suggest additional terms from LCSH, from other established lists (e.g., the MLA Types of Composition list, the Ethnographic Thesaurus), and from reference sources.  Suggestions for genre/form and medium of performance terms will also be solicited from the MLA membership at large.  The Task Force will vet the terms suggested by its members and by the MLA membership and will forward these terms on to PSD for possible inclusion in the genre/form and medium of performance lists.  The initial phase of the project, the vetting and submission of terms, should be completed by July 2009.
        “The second phase of the project will include working with PSD to establish syndetic structures for each list and to collaborate on coding and other issues, including making MARBI proposals if necessary.  This phase of the project should occur between July 2009 and February 2010.”

 The task force has agreed to attempt the following ambitious timeline:

 May 11-May 29:  Work through assigned LC genre/form and medium lists; propose changes to LC

June 1-June 19:  Divide up other sources and compile list of proposed new terms from them

June 22-July 10: Review and discuss lists of new terms; propose terms to LC

July 13-July 31: Compile terms suggested from public wiki and check for duplicates. Discuss terms and decide if they should be added; propose new terms to LC

 The task force has also established a public wiki to collect comments, questions, and suggestions from MLA and the music community at large.  This wiki may be found at the following address: http://musicgenrepublicforum.pbworks.com/

Submitted by Beth Flood