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Medium of Performance for Music: Working List of Terminology

02/14/12

An update of the list, Medium of Performance for Music: Working List of Terminology [PDF, 934 KB], has been posted, including new and modified relevant headings from the weekly or monthly additions and changes to Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH).

A new medium of performance list [PDF, 1.1 MB] has also been posted that is a product of collaboration between the Library of Congress and the Music Library Association. This list contains terms recommended for a new Medium of Performance Thesaurus that is being developed. The thesaurus is intended to be used, at least initially, for two bibliographic purposes:
1) to retrieve music by its medium of performance in library catalogs, as is now done by the controlled vocabulary, Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH);
2) to record the element “medium of performance” of musical works, as represented in individual music resources cataloged according to RDA: Resource Description and Access (RDA).
The new list, which contains approximately 700 terms, is in the form of a table. The table is a working document that will be modified from time to time.

07/02/10

The following list of terms is provided as a starting point for the development of a master list of terminology for medium of performance for music. The concept represented by each term is embodied in a Library of Congress subject heading (MARC 21 Authority Format tag 150), although in some cases the syntax of the term presented here differs from the source subject heading (e.g., Glass appears on this list, but the authorized subject heading is Glass as a musical instrument). The LCCN given opposite each term corresponds to the authority record for the related authorized subject heading. The Status column will gradually be filled in to indicate the eventual disposition of each term, as agreed to by the Library of Congress Music Genre/Form Project Group, the Music Library Association’s Genre/Form Task Force, and the Policy and Standards Division.

Medium of performance vocabulary will not be included in the thesaurus, Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT). Instead, medium terms will constitute a separate vocabulary set of their own. Medium of performance will continue to appear in bibliographic records for music and terms for medium will continue to be available as a controlled searchable vocabulary.

This list will be updated periodically to include new terms for medium of performance and to maintain existing terms through the regular LCSH approval process.

  • Medium of Performance for Music: Working List of Terminology (PDF - 17 p; 321 KB)

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