Booth Family Center Songbook and Music Pedagogy Collection

Regarding the collection's intellectual organization, the items were selected from among Special Collections’ unprocessed purchased music and, due to their shared distinctive features, made a separate songbook collection. Songbooks are defined here as bound compilations of songs made primarily by amateur or semi-professional musicians for personal use containing music written by various composers. Two of these features drove the decision to create this collection. First, compilations with works by multiple composers fit awkwardly in our general music collection of purchased music, which is organized into series by individual composer. Additionally, the songbooks’ typical origins as creations of amateurs for private use distinguishes them from the bulk of our purchased music. For these reasons it was felt they would best be served by gathering them together in a separate collection.


That said, a criterion was required to resolve ambiguous cases and determine which items would be included, or excluded, from the collection. Several closely related items, generally pedagogical manuscript songbooks containing works by a single composer, were also considered for inclusion. In format and purpose, they are very similar to the songbooks that are in the collection. In these single-composer songbooks, however, it is not always obvious whether they are student-made copies for personal use, or whether they might be copies made by the composer or his or her copyist as part of the composer's professional work, including some that could contain original works. Consequently, due to the uncertainty surrounding the context in which they were created, manuscript songbooks containing works by a single composer were not included in the collection. Their possible professional origins and potential inclusion of original works stands in contrast to the copies made in humbler and private contexts that characterize most of the items in this collection. Also, as items containing works by single composer, they fit more readily into our general collection of purchased music.


As for the physical processing of the collection, bound items in stable condition were given barcode flags and placed upright on book shelving. Disbound items, or bound items deemed too fragile for shelving, were placed in acid-free folders and then placed either in acid-free document cases or flat boxes, depending upon their size.