Canada's Musical Heritage and the World Wide Web: The NLC Music Division at 30

by S. Timothy Maloney Music Division, National Library of Canada

In April 1996, I reviewed in these pages composer Barbara Pentland, and the the activities of the National Library of violinist-conductor Ethel Stark. Canada's Music Division in the 25 years Archival materials of Albani, Parlow, since its founding in 1970, and closed Pentland, and Stark are preserved at the with some dreams for the future. NLC, and we also hold most of La Among the latter was the hope "to Bolduc's recordings. exploit new digitizing technologies to make collection elements and access Following this introductory tools available on the Internet." Little experience, the NLC committed did I realize the extent to which that resources in 1996 for several modest hope would be fulfilled. As the new digitization projects, two of which millennium dawns, we at the Music involved the Music Division: the Division are already digitization conversion of a card file to a textual veterans, and the scope and complexity database that became the Canadian of our projects have increased as the Music Periodical Index (CMPI); and the technology has evolved. In fact, creation of a "virtual" exhibition that digitization has been the Division's recycled captions, interpretive texts, and major story of the past five years, as this graphics from the NLC's Glenn Gould article will show. exhibition, which had toured across Canada and abroad in the early 1990's.

Early Web Activities The Canadian Music Periodical Index (C www.nlc-bnc.ca/wapp/cmpi >) Our first World Wide Web initiative holds approximately 30,000 was a small collaborative project in bibliographic records of articles covering 1995, when the NLC created bilingual all aspects of musical activity in Canada Web pages highlighting the published in 475 Canadian music achievements of Women in Canadian journals, newsletters, and magazines, Lif, Society, Music, and Literature some dating back to the mid-19th () is a database of question can be borrowed through inter- information on 90,000 mainly French- library loan. Indexing of about 200 language popular songs released on disc current Canadian music periodical in Canada between the late 1950's and continues and new records are uploaded the mid-1980's. The data includes song to the database several times per year. title, composer, performer, label, release and deletion dates, copyright holders, The Glenn Gould Archive and other details. It was originally (~www.gould.nlc-bnc-ce) is a multi- compiled on index cards by a Quebec faceted Web site which evolved from the record retailer, Louise Lamothe, who initial 1996 '%irlml" exhibition drawn later founded SDRM (now SODRAC), a fkom Gould's archival papers. Following Quebec-based agency that collects and tremendous public interest in the early distributes royalties related to the version of the site, the Music Division mechanical reproduction rights for sound added databases of the contents of recordings. The NLC acquired Mme Gould's archival fond!, audio files, Larnothe's card catalogue in 1986 and research tools (including a discography), the Music Division converted it to digital writings by and about Gould, works of form and mounted it on the Web in art and poetry inspired by him, 1997. information on Gould conferences and symposia, links to other Gould Web This importance of this database to sites, and more. The original Web Canadian discography cannot be product was thus transformed in 1998 overstated. Since Canadian legal deposit into the NLC's first large-scale Web site, regulations were belatedly applied to and set the standard for future "archival" commercially produced sound sites at the Library. The site currently recordings in 1969, no comprehensive receives an average of 15,000 page catalogue (or collection) of pre- 1970 requests per month. Canadian discs exists anywhere. Disc- 0-Logue provides definitive information on French-language popular-music record production and distribution in Canada for much of the 45- and 33.3- rpm era, and has been of immense help 0-Logue Web Site," v. 26, no. 1 (April 1998): 1 1-16. See also Richard Green's article, "Old to the NLC in its retrospective collecting Grooves, New Waves: 78's on the Web," CAML efforts. While an analogous cache of Newsletter, v. 27, no. 3 (Dec. 1999): 15-19. information about Canadian English- language popular music released on disc VG database will eventually hold in the same era has not yet come to the detailed information on the NLC's our attention, we are hopeful that such a complete collection of Canadian 78's, gold mine exists and will eventually find which currently totals about 50,000 its way to the NLC. discs. In 2000, the VG Web site received 153,400 page requests and The Music Division's other sound- 47,000 audio-streaming requests. recording digitization project of the late 1990's created The Virtual Gramophone "Virtual" Exhibitions (C www.nlc-bnc.ca/gramophone/ >), a Web site that is proving to be of great Since completing work on the Glenn interest to discographers as well as Gould Archive Web site in early 1998, winning praise from institutions such as we have mounted smaller "virtual" the Library of Congress and the British exhibitions drawn fiom the archives of Library. The site is devoted to the 78- the composers, Sir Ernest MacMillan (< rpm era in Canada, which ran fiom 1900 www.nlc-bnc.ca/events/macmill/home. to about 1955, and takes its name fiom Htm >) and Claude Champagne (< the Berliner Gramophone Company of www.nlc-bnc.ca/champagne/ >). Our Montreal, the world pioneer in flat-disc most recent ''vvirtual" exhibition was audio technology. Benefiting fiom launched July 1, 2000, along with a technological advances and fiom the traditional exhibition mounted in the NLC's investment in Oracle software, NLC's main exhibit hall, both The Virtual Gramophone was conceived celebrating the 75" birthday of the as a multimedia, as opposed to a purely Canadian jazz icon, Oscar Peterson (< textual, database. www.nlc-bnc.ca/oscarpeterson >). This Web site, entitled Oscar Peterson: A Still at a relatively early stage of its Jazz Sensation, . includes an extensive development, the VG Web site already array of photos, c~ncertposters, and features comprehensive data on 6,000 of documents fiom the NLC's Oscar the earliest Berliner, Victor, His Petersonfoncls, as well as audio files and Master's Voice, and Columbia an archival finding aid. It is already recordings released in Canada. In averaging over 15,000 page requests per addition, there are scanned images of all month. the record labels, digital audio files of 1,000 recordings with Canadian-content Current Web Activity (those featuring Canadian artists, composers, or arrangers), photos and The Music Division's latest Web biographies of Canadian stars of the 78- projects, undertaken in collaboration rpm era, chronologies of recording with the NLC's Digital Library Task technology, histories of the major record Force and underwritten with special companies, and links to related Web digitization funds provided by the sites. To date, the site covers fiom 1900 Department of Canadian Heritage, are to the 1920's. The next phase of two new multimedia databases, one development is targeting record releases devoted to historical Canadiana sheet of the Depression era in Quebec. The music and the other to an on-line music Force has created a multimedia database encyclopedia. which could serve as the technological backbone for a Web-based EMC3 or a The Web site devoted to Sheet Music continuously updated EMC-e. The EMC fi-om Canada 'S Past ( < http://www.nlc- board of directors is currently fund- bnc.ca/sheetmusic/ > ) is based on the raising in the hopes of assembling a new NLC's collection of about 20,000 pieces editorial team to update this important of sheet music published 1759-1950. reference tool, and the NLC Music This collection comprises mainly Division looks forward to developments Canadian imprints but includes some on that front. Meanwhile, as a service to foreign items that have a Canadian "CanMus" scholars and under the connection. As a prelude to creating the guidance of the Music Division, the database, the Music Division arranged second edition of the Encyclopedia for much of its manual union catalogue (EMCL?),published in English in 1992 of Canadiana sheet music to be and in French in 1993, will be offered on converted to AMICUS records by the NLC's Web site (< www.nlc- contractors from the Canadian Musical bnc.ca/emc >). Heritage Society between 1995 and 2000. Since the autumn of 2000, segments of the sheet music collection Web Publications dating fiom the pre-Confederation and First World War eras have been scanned, Besides creating "virtual" exhibitions and work has begun on music fiom the and "archival" Web sites, and providing intervening period. access to "CanMus" research tools and segments of Canada's musical and This site will grow in multiple recorded-sound heritage via the Internet, phases, as has been the case with our the Music Division has also been very other large Web projects. In addition to active in both traditional and Web bibliographic data, the multimedia publishing over the past five years. database currently includes images of each page of music (in the public domain An updated catalogue of the Music or for which copyright clearance can be Division's archival holdings was obtained), cover illustrations and published on the Web in 2000: Music advertisements, audio files, and Archives at the National Library of background material on Canadian music Canada: A Guide < http://www.intranet. publishers of the pre-Confederation and nlc-bnc.ca/pubs/fonds/epgtitre.htm> We First World War eras. Details about anticipate publishing the Guide in hard noted composers, lyricists, and copy soon. Entries in the Web version illustrators, and ancillary information will be revised as new archival will be added in a future phase. accessions are made, and hyper-linked to individual archival fmding aids, as In anticipation of a collaborative these are created and mounted on the effort to produce a new edition of the Web. This will permit a range of access Encyclopedia of Music in Canada to NLC's music archives fiom cursory to (EMC), the NLC's Digital Library Task detailed, depending on researchers' individual requirements. Finding aids to various music archives are already available in hard copy and as PDF files Exhibits and Exhibitions on the Web. Recent examples include: Although digitization has been the focus of the past five years, the The Oscar Peterson Fonds traditional work of the Division minor exhibits each year, some of which (Ottawa: National Library of are displayed at venues outside the NLC, Canada, 2000) including the National Arts Centre (NAC). These exhibits celebrate such The Otto Joachim Fonds diverse topics as "Music fiom 100 years the World." On occasion they (Ottawa: National Library of complement cultural events in the Canada, 1999) national capital, such as the NAC's celebrations for the composer Malcolrn Forsyth's 70" birthday in 1996 and the The Robert Fleming Fonds composer-arranger Robert Farnon's 80" (Ottawa: Canadian figure skating championships National Library of Canada, held here in 1999. 1998) Music Division staff also prepare celebratory exhibits for Order of Canada The Jacques Hitu Fonds recipients and memorial exhibits for (Ottawa: the latter category, Louis Applebaum, National Library of Canada, Violet Archer, Jean Coulthard, Jean 1998) Papineau-Couture, Barbara Pentland, and Louis Quilico were all honoured in The Andri Privost Fonds 2000. We routinely collaborate with (Ottawa: items fi-om our collections for recent National Library of Canada, exhibits mounted by the Vancouver and 1997) Montreal branches of the Canadian Music Centre, the Canadian War Museum, the National Capital The Mathieu Family Fonds Commission, and the National Library of (Ottawa: National Library of Canada, Periodically the Music Division is 1997) privileged to have the full resources of the NLC put at its disposal for the preparation of a major exhibition. The the Canadian Musical Heritage series; Library's millennia1 exhibition, which and MusiCanada 2000: Essays in opened July 1, 2000 and will run until Honour of the Canadian Music Certtre's Sept. 4, 2001, is "Oscar Peterson: A 40th Anniversary. Some have Jazz Sensation." The most ambitious contributed entries to the Canadian exhibition yet produced at the NLC, it Encyclopedia, the New Grove Dictionary includes audio, video, posters, programs, of Music and Musicians, and Women in photos, press clippings, sound World History, while others have recordings, awards, fan letters, and many published articles and reviews in the other items drawn fiom the rich archive CAML Newsletter, Fontes Artis Musicae, this Canadian jazz icon has been the National Library News and National donating to the NLC since 199 1. Library Bulletin, and the journals of the Australian and New Zealand Branches of Outreach the International Association of Music Libraries. We also wrote articles for Members of the Music Division publications that target a more general contribute their time and expertise to the readership, such as Classical Music governance, conferences, and Magazine, The Ongakugendai (Music publications of numerous bodies that Journal, Tokyo, Japan), and Music share the Division's mandate or Forum (published by the Music Council interests, including 17Association des of Australia). archivistes du Quebec, the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, the Providing research and other support Audio Engineering Society, the for GlennGould magazine, various Canadian Association of Music Gould monographs, and CD-ROM Libraries, the Canadian Institute for Arts productions relating to Gould and Oscar Eduication, the Canadian Musical Peterson has been another part of our Heritage Society, the Encyclopedia of activities of the past half-decade. Music in Canada, the Glenn Gould Foundation, the International Association of Music Libraries, the Audio Conservation International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives. We also assist Increasingly, the work of the the Department of Canadian Heritage Division's audio conservator, Gilles St- and organizations such as the AV Laurent, takes place in the digital Preservation Trust in the development of domain. Over the last five years, the new strategies to preserve and NLC has made a major commitment to disseminate elements of our cultural enhancing the studio's capabilities by heritage. Both anthologies were reviewed in the CAML Newsletter. See: Christopher Weait, review of Books and Articles "Musicfor Winds I: BadMusique pour vents I: hannonie, edited by S. Timothy Maloney," and Since 1995, members of the Music "Music for Winds 11: Ensembles/Musique pour vents 11: ensembles, edited by S. Timothy Division have edited two anthologies in Maloney," v. 28, no. 1 (April 2000): 29-30. adding a Digital Audio Workstation, Recent Acquisitions Computer Enhanced Digital Audio Restoration (CEDAR) modules, In the print domain, we acquired the RealAudio streaming technology, and Hough collection of Whaley, Royce the capacity to convert analogue audio documents, including proof copies of signals to digital. At the same time, over 400 sheet-music publications. A custom-made equipment such as pre- special gem that came our way was a amps, a cylinder player, and an concert program of the five-year-old "archival" turntable have taken their Glenn Gold (before the family changed places alongside new professional its name to Gould) performing for the amplifiers, speakers, and a recording first time in public on June 5, 1938 with console, thereby significantly upgrading his parents at Uxbridge United Church. the studio's analogue equipment chain. This was an item we did not previously have. In addition to transferring the contents of analogue sound recordings to In the area of sound recordings, we newer supports for conservation or acquired the Michel Picard Collection of dissemination purposes (e.g., mounting 2,800 QukbCcois 78-rpm discs, the audio files on our Web sites), the Music Ralph Gustafson Collection of historic Division creates high-quality dubs of piano recordings, the Perry Collection of historic recordings in the NLC collection almost 1,000 Henry Burr recordings, at the request of broadcasters and record several hundred Guy Lombardo companies. Such collaborations have recordings donated by the Thacker given new life to numerous older Family of Toronto, and hundreds of recordings in the NLC's collections, Berliner, Columbia and other recordings among which a few notables are: fiom the collection of Claude Seary of Victoria. Among the recorded rarities live performances by the tenor acquired in the last five years were early Raoul Jobin and the contralto recordings (ca. 1904) by Emma Albani, Portia White, the former Russian pressings of LP's by Glenn preserved on flaking acetate Gould, Lois Marshall, and Ida Haendel, discs, the latter on fragile 78-rpm and lesser-known LP's by many discs; Canadian artists, including Anne acetate discs of live radio Murray, the Guess Who, Les Classels, broadcasts by the young Glenn and thousands of local rock groups, and Gould; and, church and school choirs, who all pioneering experiments in contribute to Canada's musical heritage. electronic music spliced together in the 1940's and 50's by Hugh Among the archives acquired by the Le Caine on now-deteriorating Music Division in the last five years are magnetic tape. those of the composers Murray Adaskin, Victor Davies, Harry Freedman, Jacques We also contributed to a series of Hktu, Otto Joachim, Alfied Lalibertk, recordings documenting Quebec's folk Clarence Lucas, Robert McMullin, and music heritage. AndrC Prevost; the performers Paul Bley, Greta Kraus, Lois Marshall, John covering concert activity in Canada from Newmark, Louis Quilico, and the the mid- 1800's to the present day. This, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir; the singer- too, would ideally be a multimedia songwriters Bryan Adams, Wade database, with cataloguing information Hemsworth, Dan Hill, Sarah McLachlan, linked to images of the programs, photos and Eddie Schwartz; the jazz writer and bios of celebrated musicians, audio Gene Lees and the opera writer- files featuring the identical repertoire broadcaster Ruby Mercer; the record and performers as highlighted in selected producers Bruce Fairbairn and Jim programs, information about historic Vallance; and the music-industry instruments and venues, and more. executive, Lee Silversides. In addition, Another proposed project would see we have acquired corporate archives many of the approximately 60,000 including A & F Music (the largest historic photographs held by the Music talent agency and tour management Division scanned and mounted on the company in Canada), the Encyclopedia Web. of Music in Canada, and Rosnick-Blum- Morris-MacKinnon, a major jingle- National libraries owe it to their producing company in Toronto. citizens to promote their heritage and make their treasures accessible. Both Canada's Heritage Minister, the Conclusion Honourable Sheila Copps, and the National Librarian, Roch Carrier, have The pace of our digitization activities expressed their strong desire to exploit has surprised us all, but we look forward the Internet's possibilities to make to maintaining or even surpassing it in Canada's cultural heritage available to the future. We have other Web Canadians and the world. As the NLC proposals awaiting funding, including a Music Division enters its fowth decade, Canadian Concert Program Index to we reflect with satisfaction on our many provide remote access to the NLC's accomplishments and look forward collection of over 70,000 programs to the challenges ahead.