Barry S. Brook, President de la Commission Mixte du RILM
Nanna Schiødt, Recording Secretary

Report No. 11: Bergen, 1976

The annual IAML meeting devoted one general session to RILM. The president’s annual report was followed by special reports from National Chairmen. Discussion dealt with questions of coverage, abridgment of author abstracts, and RILM policy on reviews. Anders Lönn, Chairman of the Thesaurus Subcommission, described the state of the multi-lingual International Thesaurus.

Report by the President

Vol. VII is at last complete and the first issue of Vol. VIII has been published. VIII/2-3, a double issue, will be out by the end of the year. For the first time edited abstracts and their subject index entries are being fed into the computer in a single operation that speeds up publication by streamlining the input process. At the suggestion of François Lesure, RILM is initiating a banque des lacunes in an effort to include abstracts passed over during the first ten years of publication. VIII/1 contains a statement requesting editors and authors to send by June 1977 abstracts of works which have been omitted. The same statement will be published in periodicals and newsletters of scholarly societies throughout the world. These abstracts of earlier publications will appear in Vols. IX and X, and their content reflected in the next 5-year cumulative index. The full statement reads:

TO AUTHORS AND EDITORS

We are making an intensive effort to include all missing abstracts for 1967-1976 materials, prior to the publication of our next 5-year cumulative index. May we ask you to check the list of your writings against the entries in RILM abstracts and send abstracts for your papers, articles, books, reviews (and reviews of your own works), etc., which may have been omitted. If you are aware of any other lacunae, please notify us. Abstract forms are available on request from the International RILM Center, although blank sheets may also be used.

With an eye to the second 5-year cumulative index, 1972-76, a revised Guide to Indexing has been prepared in order to refine the system and achieve greater consistency. Criticisms and suggestions received after publication of the first 5-year cumulative index have been taken into consideration. Both the revised English Thesaurus and the Guide to Indexing were circulated at the meeting. On the question of finances, the President reported that RILM’s requests last year for assistance from several learned societies had in every case resulted in a positive response; however the anticipated new grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities will not be forthcoming until May. The period between October and May will be critical In the interests of economy, RILM will omit cyrillic captions; starting with Vol. VIII/1 only transliterations will be provided. The 6th edition of Grove’s Dictionary will include an article on RILM.

RILM has established a special Retrieval Service to provide subscribers with Xerox copies of abstracts not yet published or not yet even edited. For the time being there will be no charge for this service. Although all material published in RILM remains accessible through the computer, information retrieval from the data bank itself has not been necessary thus far since printed cumulative in-depth indexing provides ready access to all published abstracts. A number of scholars have however requested current materials – for example Rudolph Angermüller, to whom RILM was able to supply many relevant abstracts for the new edition of the Mozart-Bibliographie of the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum (Mozart-Jahrbuch 1975).

Special Reports

Many National Chairmen or their representatives reported personally on RILM activities and problems in their countries. These reports were supplemented at the meeting by summaries of written communications sent by other National Chairmen.

Australia: Andrew McCredie reports that the three core journals are being covered, and that all university music departments have been contacted regarding inclusion of dissertations.

Austria: Bernhard and Erna Bruckbög write that the Austrian committee is in grave financial difficulty and request help from RILM in the form of letters to the Ministerium.

Belgium: Bernard Huys reports a considerably revised list of core journals; the chief difficulty now is in covering non-music journals.

Canada: Kathleen McMorrow writes that the Canadian Association of Music Libraries, at its May meeting in Quebec, proposed action to further RILM coverage of Canadian material. Maria Calderisi announced that the CAML Newsletter will include citations of Canadian abstracts in RILM, to encourage more authors to contribute in the future.

Denmark: Torben Schousboe reports with regret that from now on only bibliographic details will be sent to RILM unless the authors write abstracts themselves.

Ecuador: A National Committee has been established under the direction of Mr. Segura-Ibarra, former National Director of Music in Ecuador.

France: François Lesure’s proposal for a banque des lacunes has been adopted (see above).

Germany (BRD): Harald Heckmann expressed disappointment that abstracts are sometimes abridged. The President replied that RILM is always cognizant of authors’ sensibilities, but must continually attempt to strike a balance between the journal’s need to be brief and authors’ need to be expansive. National Chairmen were requested to invite authors to avoid lengthy abstracts. The International RILM Center will, in turn, attempt to abridge less often.

Germany (DDR): Konrad Niemann sends in revisions in the list of journals covered plus a thoughtful and most welcome Bericht über die Tätigkeit des Nationalkomitees der DDR, speziell zur Verbesserung der Erfassung des Titelmaterials für RILM
Great Britain: Oliver W. Neighbour, successor to Alexander Hyatt King as music librarian of the British Library, has agreed to serve as National RILM Chairman; he is in process of organizing a new committee. Malcolm Turner continues as RILM’s National Secretary.

Hungary: János Kárpáti, president of the reorganized Hungarian RILM committee, describes successful efforts to fill in RILM lacunae. He requests that abstracts not be further abridged, a request reiterated in person at the meeting by Mme Graf-Forrai, secretary of the Hungarian committee. See the president’s response under “Germany (BRD)”.

Israel: Israel Adler has resumed chairmanship of the RILM committee upon Bathja Bayer’s resignation. The new coordinator is Claude Abravanel, Director of the Amli Library.

Italy: Emma Pirani and Mariangela Donà report that the Italian committee has been reorganized. Each of the members now bears responsibility for a separate branch of coverage, of books, journals, and dissertations. A larger number of non-specialized journals will be covered than previously. Lacunae from past years are being filled as quickly as possible.

Japan: Masaaki Niwa and Mitsue Masaki report that the National Committee is extremely active. Abstracts of items by Japanese authors are also issued in Japanese in an annual pamphlet entitled Ongaku Bunken Yòshi Mokuroku.

Korea: Bang-Song Song is now National Chairman. His bibliography, Source Readings in Asian Music, is a rich source of RILM material.

Mexico: Carmen Sordo-Sodi reports that the National Committee has been expanded with the addition of Esperanza Pulido and José Antonio Alcaraz.

Portugal: Maria F. Cidrais-Rodrigues announces high hopes of increased RILM activity in the near future.

Rumania: Vasile Tomescu reports in detail regarding the activities and methods of the National Committee.

Spain: The new National Chairman, José Lopez-Calo, reports that the young people at the Madrid Conservatory are ready and willing to gather material for RILM. He himself will undertake translation of abstracts turned in, but comments that the students will need a committee to advise them.

Sweden: Anders Lönn reports that RILM material is provided through the Swedish Music History Archive. About ten percent of the literature gathered by the Archive is sent to RILM, the remainder being of interest only in Sweden.

USSR: The Committee remains one of the most consistently active. Galina Koltypina is now a member.

Viet Nam: Trân Van Khê reports on a new journal of the arts, established in 1973, that promises to be a rich source of information on music and theater.

USA: In the ongoing struggle for more complete coverage, the President reported that the chief bibliographical publications are checked on a regular basis. Dissertation Abstracts, for example, is a standard source for RILM material. Many area editors also check abstract journals in other fields as a matter of course. The Music Index, on the other hand, has proved to have too many items inappropriate to RILM, and the regular reviewing of it has been dropped. Coverage of books is checked systematically against the lists in Notes, appropriate sections of which are sent to all National Chairmen for comparison with their own lists. In conclusion the President requested that RILM be contacted in advance when Festschriften or Congress Reports are planned, to facilitate their coverage.

Discussion

Spurred by suggestions from Don Krummel, RILM’s policy concerning reviews was reexamined at the meeting. A vote was taken on three propositions to limit inclusion in this area: I) On a motion to eliminate reviews under 300 words, with the exception of those in core journals, the vote was: yes 14; no 11; abstentions 3. The President concluded this was not a strong enough consensus to take immediate action changing RILM’s policy without further consultation with the National Chairmen. II) On a motion to eliminate reviews of collected volumes, Festschriften and Congress Reports, the vote was: yes 13; no 13. The question will also be submitted to the National Chairmen. III) The motion to eliminate reviews of reprints, except in special cases, was adopted.

International Thesaurus

Anders Lönn, Chairman of the Thesaurus Subcommission, reported briefly on developments. In spite.of a number of offers to provide a list of Italian terms, no such list has come forth. The Chairman proposed that Mariangela Dona be invited to provide one. The Spanish list for the Thesaurus will be taken care of by Dr. López-Calo.

Postscript: Following the meeting the President received these communications: The RILM Thesaurus in Russian translation, prepared by Jerzy Gołos (using cyrillic characters for subject entries and roman alphabet for cross references), is now available on request. A Japanese translation has been undertaken by the Japanese RILM committee under the direction of Masaaki Niwa. Mercedes Reis Pequeno (Rio de Janeiro) is translating the Thesaurus terms into Portuguese.

Participants:

Belgium: Bernard Huys; Canada: Maria Calderisi; Denmark: Nanna Schiødt; Germany: Norbert Böker-Hell, Gertraut Haberkamp, Harald Heckmann, Joachim Jaenecke, Wolfgang Krueger; Great Britain: Clifford Bartlett, Jane Harington, Richard Macnutt, Miriam Miller, Will Rosser; Hungary: Magda Graf-Forrai; Netherlands: Clemens yon Gleich; Norway: Karen-Margrethe Barstad, Kirsti Grinde, Nils Grinde, H. Huldt-Nyström; Poland: Ariela Kolbuszewska, Maria Prokopowicz; Portugal: M.F. Cidrais Rodrigues; Spain: José Lopez-Calo; Sweden: Bengt Brännland, Anna-Lena Holm, Cari Johansson, Bengt Kyhlberg, Anders Lonn, Siegfried Mühlhäuser; USA: Otto E. Albrecht, Ann Briegleb, Barry S. Brook, Lenore Coral, Vincent Duckles, Jean Geil, Barbara Henry, Marion Korda, Don Krummel, Don L. Roberts, Linda Solow, Lawrence Vittes.