Cataloging Templates

It is the last official day of my sabbatical and I managed to put together the beginnings of two templates for cataloging recital and concert recordings. I decided to go with two because of the differences in some of the necessary fields between individual student recitals and concert recordings of larger ensembles. Even recitals featuring more than one performer were distinctly different than ensemble performances as were concert performances by a chamber ensemble still different than student, faculty, or guest artist recitals.

The main differences were in the fields for access points, the 1xx and 7xx fields. Also as I worked through the spreadsheet I came up with a format for titles of the recordings and these were different between the ensembles and the recitals. Overall, it just made sense to go with two templates.

I had questioned creating templates in our local catalog system (Voyager) versus creating them as constant data files in OCLC. Since OCLC is more likely to be around long term and Voyager is not, I opted for OCLC. The only complication in this is that I have not discussed with a few key people at my institution whether we want to put these records in OCLC or not. My opinion on the matter used to be to catalog locally except for maybe ensemble concerts and/or graduate recitals, but a late great music cataloger once opined the importance of adding this kind of material to OCLC and it convinced me that was the better way to go.  So for now, my templates are living in OCLC as constant data files.

This is what I have done so far:

Template for recital recordings

I am defining recital recordings as any performance featuring one or more individual performers of works mostly for solo instrument. Recitals may include chamber pieces. Some exceptions: chamber recitals in which there is still one primary performer who performs on all works while the other members of the ensembles change. Also lecture recitals which may include a number of performers but the main thrust of the recital is still focused on one individual.

In the template above I have the main descriptive and access fields. I have not yet dealt with the fixed fields or the 007 field. There are other 0xx fields I may add as well. In the rest of this record anywhere that I have text bracketed and in all caps is where I expect information to go. You'll notice in the 245 that I have left the statement of responsibility area blank. I'm still trying to decide how I am going to set that up in conjunction with the 100 and the title portion of the 245. The 260 includes only the year since we are dealing with unpublished material. But that leads me to another question I need to answer as well: I did code the Country code in the fixed fields for "xx" since the 260 does not include a place of publication. However, you'll notice the codes I added to the 033 field which do indicate location. I'm thinking I can use those because the location of performance is cited in the note field and the 033 is linked more so to that than the publication info.  Am I correct on that?

Moving along, I have a standard 300 description field followed by my notes. Compact disc note first and then a note for "Program available." That is a place holder. I hope to have a more detailed note about the program once we make a decision on to house the programs. I have also set up notes in which to add performers, date, time, and place of performance, and a contents note. Finally I've stuck in a couple places for additional performers to be listed.

I skipped subject headings (6xx fields) for now, but I do plan on having them there. Those will differ for each recording, so I do not expect that a student worker or circulation staff member will be adding those fields. So having them in the template was not important to me.

The next step will be putting together instructions for how to properly enter info into these templates.

For comparison purposes, here is the template for ensemble concert recordings:

Template for ensemble concert recordings

I am defining ensemble concert recordings as any recording of a performance by a named ensemble, whether a chamber ensemble of 3-5 players or a large group such as a concert band, symphonic orchestra, or opera production. The individual performers may or may not be named. Generally, conductors and soloists are listed alongside the group names.

Finally, I need to put together instructions. These will include things like how to put a person's name in (last, first), how to structure and what information is included in the 505/Contents field, how to add additional notes, how to create the title, and who to put where when their are many names present. Also little things like how to add a field and other technical stuff.

As I worked through the spreadsheet and then created these templates I can envision now how these records will really get created. I can see a student worker or a circulation staff member getting these recordings, entering the descriptive information and the names for the access points. I can even see training a full-time staff member to do basic searches in the LCNAF on OCLC to get the proper headings for personal and corporate names that may be there. The records would then be saved in an online file in OCLC and the recording and program passed on to either myself or my cataloging staff member for us to do the rest of the authority work and add subject headings as well as checking the overall work in the rest of the record. One of us could also add it to OCLC and our local system or maybe we pass it back to the circulation department for them to handle. Not sure yet of that last step.

And that is all for now! Since there are still many open parts of this project I will continue to keep up this blog as work on this project continues. So stay tuned.

Image source morgueFile

Coming to a Close ...

Not my desk, but the idea is close

... but not really.

Yes, the sabbatical period is coming to a close very soon, but this project will go on.  It has to, it is so far from being complete.  "Complete" being a relative term in librarian-ese.

For now, in my last week working on this project full-time, I wanted to give a quick update on where the spreadsheet stands.

Let's recap: the spreadsheet was a total of 10,123 rows of data.  Each row represented one specific musical work performed on a recital or concert recording.  Thus one particular recital or concert could be made up of anywhere from 1 row to 20 rows (or more in a few select cases).

In an effort to get a small portion of the work done and be able to do something with it, I ended up stopping my work at the end of 1989.  That gave me roughly 8 years of data (1982-1989).  The data is sporadic in the first few years, but 1986-1989 are pretty complete.

The years 1982-1989 represented 1,789 rows on the spreadsheet, 17.7% of the total.

I copied the years 1982-1989 over to a new spreadsheet so I could play with the data without messing up the entire spreadsheet.  In the new spreadsheet file I separated this chunk of years by "Student, faculty, & guest recitals" and "Ensemble concerts."  This allowed my to delete columns in one or the other that no longer applied to that chunk of data; for example, the 100 field from the Ensemble list and the 110 field from the Recitals list.

Recitals came out to 886 rows of data or 49.5% of the total of 1982-1989 data.  Ensemble concerts cam out to 903 rows of data of 50.5% of the total.  Pretty much an even 50/50 split.

I then went through the list one last time to put in more uniformity.  One of the problems with working on a large set of data over a long period of time is as you go along and get more experience you make decisions that you didn't think of earlier on in your work.  By the time I got the end I had a rhythm established and knew how I wanted things to look.  So going back to the top and revising one last time was important for me to have the uniformity across the data.  Especially as I consider making templates for future data.

The templates were constantly on my mind.  Things have to be consistent if you want to be able to create a template for someone else to use who doesn't have the experience and can't make cataloging decisions.

Thankfully, the process of going back over those 8 years of data went pretty quickly.  Having the data separated into recitals in one place and ensembles in another made a big difference, I didn't have to constantly switch gears.  And uniformity came much easier than.

Titles (245) were a big issue in the Ensemble list.  For some reason I had left this out all the way through.  But I came up with an easy solution and it didn't take long to stick titles in for each recording.

Programs are going to be an issue down the road.  Available programs were pretty much non-existent until around 1986, but remain sporadic until around 1988.  I did not request copies of every program, that would have been too time consuming, but did request one when the info in the spreadsheet was confusing or needed to be better sorted out.  Programs will have to be addressed at a later time.

Image source: MorgueFile

In the Home Stretch

I can't believe this sabbatical time is almost to a close.  In a little less than three weeks I will be back at work and any further work on this project will become just a small part of my regular job again.  There is SO MUCH work that still needs to be done!!  I've done a lot but a lot more could be done.

Here's a quick summary of what I have tackled and hope to accomplish in the next few weeks.

The largest part of the project has been the database itself.  This is the main instigator of doing this project in the first place.  I have handled all the composer names and cleaned up a lot of other names (performers, arrangers, etc.) throughout most of the database: composers are done all the way through; other names are semi-done.

Currently I'm working through the notes, which has been way more of a headache than I anticipated.  But in the last few weeks I've gotten into a rhythm with those.  Basically I am taking all the notes and getting rid of duplicate information and condensing all the note info onto one line for each recording.  This is in contrast to the current set up where the notes appear on every line.  I had originally thought that they were all duplicates and that all I had to do with delete all lines but one and then arrange them appropriately into the columns I had established (general note, performers note, location note, etc.).  What a silly assumption!  Many of those lines of notes were specific to the piece that line represented.  So this is what I have done:

• Find something in the notes section that can be or seems to represent a title for the whole recording and cut and paste it into the title column.  Delete all other instances of that title.
• Move all performers into one line regardless of which pieces they do or do not perform on.  IF a program is available, designate which pieces individuals perform on within that note.  List each name or group once and delete all other instances of the name.
• Move any other general notes into a general note field.  Delete all other instances of that note.
• If a program is available create a time and place note (518) for the performance and recording.
• If there is a note on a student recital regarding the recital being "in partial fulfillment of" a certain degree type, put it in a general note.  Delete all other instances of the note.  [May reconsider moving these notes to a 502 note later, for now keeping them general (500) notes.]
• Delete notes made that are typically not used in MARC records for sound recordings.  In other words, if it doesn't fit, delete it.  [This was a really hard concept for me at first.  Delete information??  But something had to give and there were many instances of extraneous info.]

Right now my goal is to finish working on these notes through 1989 (I'm almost there) which will give me 8 years worth of recordings to play with in MARC format.  I am then going to copy and paste those 8 years into a new spreadsheet.  Once I have a new spreadsheet for them I will create two tabs and separate the recordings by recitals in one tab and large ensemble concerts in another tab.  For the most part every recording fits one of those two categories, exceptions are few and I can put those where they best fit.   Once I have them separated in this way, I can customize a few things that are specific to those types.  I should be able to complete all of this by the end of this week.  Next steps will be to finally move the info to MARC records.

The second part of my project was to create templates for future recordings.  I don't think this will be difficult to accomplish.  Especially with all the work I have done so far, I can see much more clearly what information we even have for these recordings and how I have been dealing with that info.  I think now that I have this experience, creating the templates won't be too hard.  That is unless I decide to create templates in RDA format (which makes the most sense, unfortunately).  Even then though, I don't think there would be too many differences.

Third part of the project was the digital side.  I have a proposal in my head for digitizing the programs and linking them up with the finished MARC records in our local catalog.  I haven't yet explored the possibilities of digitizing the sound.  Sometime in the next couple weeks I want to get my hands on some of the articles written about the Variations project at Indiana and maybe talk to someone who was heavily involved in that project.  I need to find out who else is doing something similar.  What I don't know is if they are digitizing recitals or not.  I'm not interested (at the time) in digitizing our regular sound collection.

Researching requirements of recital programs (the fourth aspect of my project) has also not happened.  The first part of this project really was very time consuming!  This is something I REALLY want to do though.  I know the approach I want to take with this, but haven't been able to devote the time to it yet.

Finally, surveying other institutions on their cataloging practices regarding recital and concert performances at their institutions.  I have put together a survey and I sent it out to a few colleagues just for feedback.  I have received that feedback and made a few changes, but I need to make more based on that feedback.  But then I stopped short on actually setting it up as a survey (I originally thought I'd get a survey out before the end of May).  Reason being is that I put together a short survey for a personal project and realized in that process that how I wanted to set up this survey wasn't going to work the way I wanted it to.  Plus it occurred to me that the university may have guidelines that need to be followed in doing surveys for research and since I want to eventually publish an article with the information I gather, I need to investigate further.  Plus, maybe the university has a survey tool that I could take advantage of that would be better than the free tools I have been using online for other projects.  So this aspect of my project has started to look bigger than I anticipated.

So that's where I stand right now.  In the last month of this project I am looking back at the project overall, what I have accomplished, what I know I can get done in the remaining three weeks, and what still needs to be done and I wonder if this project was too big from the beginning.  I knew it was going to be a lot (and one aspect was added by my superiors {part 3--researching digitization possibilities} so that wasn't even in my original plan) and it has proved itself so.

It probably didn't help that we sold a house, bought a house, and moved during my sabbatical.  That probably cost me about a month of time.  But other than that I have worked pretty regularly most every day.  I do feel like I have accomplished a lot and I know this database far better than I ever did.  If I can make MARC records of the first 8 years of the database and get templates established for creating MARC records from 2012 forward, that will be a big boost to what was there before.  And I will know how to deal with the years 1990-2004 and everything added since 2004 in a much more efficient way.

Half Way Plus

First of all, I have to say that I had really hoped to make more use of this blog.  Here we are at the halfway point (well, a little past the halfway point) and this is only my ninth post.  Um, yeah ... things have been slow going.

So being that we are beyond the half way point, I really should evaluate where I am.

Number one on my Project List: Clean up the recital database.  Is this done?  No.  Is it much improved?  Yes!

• I have separated out all personal names from all corporate names in the "performers" column of the database.
• In the composer column I have cleaned up the vast majority of the names, fixed all the problem names that were in red (except for about 10) and blue, but decided to leave the problems that were in yellow and green (more on that later)
• In many places there was more than one name in the composer column.  I separated out all the extra people and have them all in their own columns.
• I started working on the Notes columns

What is still left to do:

• Create a spreadsheet of all the names that are not authorized (yellow) or uncertain (green) so they can be looked out at a future time.  This was bogging me down too much and i finally decided that I could spend the next three months fixing all these or I could skip it and get more work done in other areas.  Skipping it made the most sense.
• Authorize all the "other" names.  These are arrangers, transcribers, writers of lyrics, etc.
• Notes, notes, notes, and more notes.  I found this extremely time consuming when I started it and difficult to do.  I feel like I need to see the programs for each one or at least the recordings in order to  better organize the notes.  They really are a terrible mess!!

Number two on the list: Creating templates.  Not been done yet.  This is something that I feel confident will be easy to do once I get to a point where I'm ready to move the spreadsheet into MARC records.  Plus, I know someone at another institution who told me she has a template already.  Cooperative cataloging at it's finest!!

Number five on the list (yes, I know I skipped some): Survey.  I actually forgot that it was five on the list, but really my list isn't exactly priority order.  Well, maybe a little bit, but I have my reasons for skipping three and four.  I did finally take all my notes from when I was at MOUG and MLA in Dallas and transcribe the questions and suggestions I got from my awesome, supremely more intelligent colleagues and I'm ready to start reorganizing that list and editing the questions into a survey.  I have a reference question out to help with the "demographics" part and I have a list of colleagues I respect (paired down from 300+ to about 5) who I would like to ask to look the survey questions over and give me suggestions before I send it out.  So I feel like I've made progress here.

Number three: investigate digital possibilities.  Haven't done this yet.  This feels like just an intellectual exercise, which is the kind of thing I like.  The kind of thing that led my Master's thesis adviser to tell me that I'm a great researcher but not much of a wordsmith (thankyouverymuch).  So this is on the back burner for now.

Number four: Requirements for recital programs.  Also an item that has not been done yet.  But I have started thinking about it.  That's a start, right?

A little beyond the halfway point and this is where we stand.  I feel like I still have so much to do with this nasty spreadsheet!!  There is just still so much wrong with it.

Progress Update

In the last update I gave I had completed about 70% of the "Name" column on the spreadsheet.  That column consisted of student performer names, ensemble names, faculty ensemble names, faculty names, guest performers, and a few other random names.  Mostly I was separating out the individual names from the ensemble names.  That is now done!

What is now left in that column and the columns that got created from it is to separate out multiple names.  Some cells have two or more performers' names or two or more ensemble names.  I also haven't gone through those columns for authorized names.  So that is all still to be done.

I have also just completed my first pass through the column labeled "Composer."  This column had been worked on previously.  So I sorted the spreadsheet so it was in order according to this column and started going through it again.  I created four new columns to go along with this one:

• Composer: name only (existing column)
• Composer#$b: any sort of number associated with a name
• ComposerOther$c: any sort of title (for example, Sir) associated with a name
• ComposerFuller: for the fuller version of a name (when a name is commonly used with initials and we know what the initials stand for, we often put the fuller form of the name in parenthesis in another subfield in the name field).
• ComposerDates: Birth and/or death dates associated with a name

Since this field was already checked against the authority file, I was just moving the info around.  It went pretty quickly.  It's not 100% done, but the good majority of it is done.  The remainder cells have some sort of issue associated with them: multiple names, just a last name, two or more possible authorized headings, problems with diacritics in Excel, unauthorized names, and a few other minor problems.  Those are all highlighted in different colors to let me know what the problem is.

My next step is to go through the Composer column again and work on those highlighted cells.  I expect this to take a little longer since I'll have to go into the authority file for each one and try to determine the correct form of name.  I'll also have to move the additional names to a different column.  I currently have three additional columns for "Other name."  

I'll get started on this this week, but then I'm leaving early next week to attend the Music OCLC Users Group Meeting and the Music Library Association's annual conference in Dallas, TX.  While there I'll probably take the opportunity to try and talk to other librarians about the cataloging and management of the recital recordings at their institutions.  I'm looking forward to the trip!

Problems, problems, and more problems

There are lots of problems in the spreadsheet I am working off of.  I knew there would be, but I'm realizing that it is even worse than I could have imagined.

I've had various people over the years work on this spreadsheet, but at the time I didn't know that each recording was represented by multiple rows in the spreadsheet.  So they would sort the sheet by composer name and then be able to edit all the names to the authorized heading and only have to look up the composer once since they were listed in alphabetical order.  Sounds like a great plan, right?

So now the spreadsheet is organized by date (since that is the only way to know which rows belong together) and the composers are organized alphabetically within the concert or recital date.  Thus, I don't know what the actual order the works were performed in.

Why does this matter?  Because when we catalog sound recordings we list the works in a contents note in the order in which they were performed.  And if there are multiple performers who played on some works but not on others, we list which work they performed on, as in number of work (i.e. Kerri Baunach, clarinet (3rd work)), in a performers note.  I have no way of knowing that info at this time, so I am just listing the various performers or groups of performers in no particular order.

As a result, my performer notes aren't that helpful at the moment.  And my contents notes appear as if the works were all performed in alphabetical order according to the composer's name.  If you're a bit OCD, that might seem kind of cool.  For this OCD cataloger, it's not.

Other problems:

• Misspellings in names of performers or groups
• Inaccurate title info (how about Sarabande for guitar ensemble by J.S. Bach.  Or Fugue for guitar ensemble by Handel.  Seriously, no arrangers listed, no further title info to let me know WHICH sarabande or WHICH fugue.)
• Incomplete title info (kind of goes along with the point above)
• I have no idea which concerts or recitals have programs and which do not (I may need to contact the School of Music and spend some time with a scanner, which means going to the office and finding a babysitter.)
• The authority work

As for dealing with the spreadsheet itself:

I scrolled down to the bottom of the sheet and found that I have about 10160+ rows of information.  I have so far converted the first 57 (well 56, row 1 is column headings) into 10 rows on a new spreadsheet that would create 10 MARC records.

That doesn't sound like much when I look at those numbers, but really ... that did take me a long time.  Refer back to the problems I'm dealing with.  Those problems are on each performance.  Every. Single. One.

On the spreadsheet, I've created four new tabs.  One for the student recitals and one for the ensemble concerts.  Since I'm creating columns for each MARC field, it seemed either to do it this way so there was only one 1XX field in each spreadsheet: 100 on the student recitals and 110 on the ensembles.  Then I created a tab as a "transfer" space.  This is just for me to copy the info for the recording I'm currently working on over to this space so I can see it better.  It was getting hard on the master list to see just the parts I needed and I kept losing my place, thus wasting time.  It's working well so far.  Finally, the fourth tab I added today as a place to list the date of recordings where there is insufficient info and what that insufficient information is.  This will help when I have to go back and fix things, it should be easier to locate the problem items.

As for the original spreadsheet, I'm not changing anything on it.  I'm keeping it as a master in case I mess something up somewhere and need to refer back to something.  I've made the date column bold and as I complete a recording I un-bold those dates.  That way I can keep track of where I am visually, especially since I am working in short stints and sometimes have to walk away in the middle of something.  Seven month old babies don't like to be kept waiting.

I also now have MARCEdit on my work computer and someone sent me a link to a tutorial on You Tube.  So new part of the sabbatical project: learn how to use MARCEdit and transfer all these records I'm working on into the actual MARC format.

Lots going on.  Problems galore, lots of cutting and pasting between spreadsheets, heavy use of the authority file, and eventually learning a new program.  On top of that, I really have to figure out a better schedule!

The Sabbatical Starts

The Sabbatical Project has officially started!  It's nice to work on a more leisurely pace and be able to focus on one thing rather than juggling a gazillion responsibilities (seemingly).

The biggest challenge is just figuring out a schedule.  I'm doing this sabbatical project with two babies at home with me, currently 7 months old.  Today was tough, we got a little off their schedule so they were each sleeping and eating at different times from each other.  Not good!  On the positive side, that rarely happens, so I have hope that we'll be back on track tomorrow.

I have discovered that I can hold a baby in one arm, hold a bottle in that same hand, and have the other hand free to check email, type, and search other institution's OPACs (ooooh, a new term for my Definitions page!).  That worked for one baby, not so much with the second baby.

One thing I did today was search for recital cataloging at other institutions.  This helped give me a better idea of what I really need to do with the data we have.  Biggest discovery: the data we have totally sucks.

The second thing today was looking at the data in our spreadsheet (used to be in a database format that is no longer supported, thus the spreadsheet).  Literally "looking."  I had a baby in my arms that was fascinated by the laptop keyboard.  I was a bit concerned looking at the first several lines of the spreadsheet.  I had to email the manager of our Fine Arts Media Center to see if programs were available for a couple mid-80s recitals or concerts so I could make sense of what I was looking at.  He provided the program for one and described the two cassette tapes for the others that helped answer my questions.

(Should I add "Cassette tape" to my list of definitions?  It was recently brought to my attention that there is now a generation of people who don't know what a cassette tape is.  Wow, I'm getting old!)

Lastly, just a note about the spreadsheet I'm working on.  Each performed piece of music is listed on a separate row of the spreadsheet.  Each entry contains the recital date, the student's name, and then the composer and title of the piece and any notes (all in one cell, by the way).  That's it.

So imagine a student who gives a senior recital and performs 5 pieces.  Then they stay to get a master's degree and they give another recital performing another 5 pieces.  That's ten lines on the spreadsheet that will contain their name.  The date is the ONLY way I am able to tell which recital pieces go together; it is THE most important piece of information I have.

And then you have lines with the same date but different performers.  Oy!  Two different recitals on the same day?  One recital with different performers?

I may be taking more trips into the office than I originally thought I would.  It'll be good for the babies to get out.

Tomorrow's goal: Set up a second tab on the spreadsheet  for editing purposes.  I'm also considering moving all the info for each recital or concert into one row, rather than multiple rows.  And then maybe also separate out large ensemble concerts from the student recitals (more tabs).  I feel like this week mainly about realistic organizing (as opposed to the previous planning I did); I'm getting a feel for how this is really going to work and what really needs to be done.  It's already looking a little different than I had thought it would.

Midwest, MLA Meeting, 2011

This weekend, Oct. 27-29, 2011, I attended the Midwest chapter meeting of the Music Library Association.  It’s always such a fun meeting.  It’s like attending a mini-MLA national meeting.  While attending this meeting I started talking to my colleagues about my upcoming sabbatical project.

When I started asking questions it was at the very end of the Cataloging Committee meeting on Thursday afternoon.  Surveys are on my mind but I’m a bit hesitant about how to do a survey.  While I had a bunch of music catalogers in a room, I figured I’d toss out my project idea and ask for input, suggestions, questions, etc.  I didn’t want to take up time at this particular meeting at this particular time (mostly because I still have too many thoughts swirling around my head that haven’t coagulated into much of anything yet), so I just asked that people find me over the next two days and we’ll talk. 

An interesting thing happened though.  As I approached people and started asking questions about their recital and concert performance recordings, I not only got several ideas, but it also raised more questions for me.  This is the great thing about conferences!!

 
A few things I now have written down include:

• Question: In our Archives department: 
• Do they already hold anything related to recitals and concerts performed by School of Music students and faculty??  If so, what formats are they in?
• Can Archives store/house anything we currently have in the Fine Arts Library?  For example, recordings older than a certain date?  How about the programs, particularly after we get them all digitized?
• Question: Where are the masters of the concerts/recitals?  The School of Music?
•  Template: Someone told me that they have a template; it is a constant data file in OCLC.  My idea was always to create a template in Voyager (our local ILS), but this sounded like a better idea.
• Pro: original record is added to OCLC directly (no importing records from Voyager)
• Pro: by using constant data, we wouldn’t have to redo or change a template if we were  to move to a different ILS system
• Con: someone with access to OCLC would have to do the cataloging (this could also be a pro, depending on your perspective; for me, this wasn’t the plan, but plans can be changed)
• Question: Will we catalog recordings that no longer work?  Cassettes that have deteriorated, CDs that no longer work, etc.
• Reminder: take pictures!!  This came to mind as I talked with some people about how items are housed currently, the condition and preservation needs of items, and other preservation and archival issues I had not thought of yet.  Some pictures of the current set up might be good to have if we end up changing some things for preservations reasons sometime down the road.

I was surprised at the number of people that told me they wanted to know more about what I was doing or how my project goes and what I did, etc.  Several others have a variety of issues and levels of cataloging (or non-cataloging) of their recital and concert recordings and are curious to hear more about this project.

I think my next step is really to figure out what I want to know from other institutions.  I could ask a bazillion questions, but that probably wouldn’t help me out much.  I really need to focus my thoughts and figure out what 2-3 issues I want to learn more about so I can create an appropriate survey. 

It has been a while, but at one time I had done a search on the MLA-L archives and found posts from others who had queried the list with questions about cataloging their recital and concert recordings.  Those questions would be helpful to pull up again.  That’s really what I need to ask about and put together all the answers into one place: one article or something that would be useful for the next person who has the same questions.

This project seems to get bigger and bigger every time I start thinking about it.