Composers don't always limit their creativity to the sphere of sound. Music materials can arrive with a wide variety of attachments in odd formats, often with thoroughly inadequate binding. There are two approaches to take with such materials:
- Divide and conquer -- split up the "work" into its various component formats and shelve them separately, leaving them linked only bibliographically. This may involve some inconvenience to the patron, depending on how far apart the different formats are shelved and whether the circulation policies are different.
- Accommodate the diversity with creative binding. This can be quite entertaining for technical services staff and more convenient for patrons, but it does increase the risk of a work being returned without one of its parts.
Alice Carli, formats
Last updated: March 16, 2008, at 04:17 PM EDT