Chamber Orchestra Music Database Presentation
The Organization:
The Albert Seay Library of Music and Art at Colorado College maintains a collection
which includes over 19,000 scores, 2700 books and music reference materials, and
11,000 sound and video recordings. In addition to the main collection, the Music Library
also holds the music collection of the Colorado Chamber Orchestra. The Chamber
Orchestra music is NOT cataloged with the main collection in our main Library database,
but rather is currently only organized in an old fashioned card catalog system.
An example of what the current card catalog system looks like:
Mission Statement:
“The purpose of a Chamber Orchestra Database is to provide a well organized cataloging
system which will accurately account for all of the Colorado College’s chamber music
collection.”
Mission Objectives:
1. The database will serve as a more organized means of keeping track of the Chamber
Orchestra’s collection.
2. The database will allow searchers to find music through a variety of access points such
as type of piece, instrumentation, composer ect.
3. The database will also be a means of keeping statistics of how often the various
chamber orchestra pieces get checked out or used.
4. Should it prove successful, this database will provide a template for future Library
projects that could have their own databases.
5. Again, if it proves to be successful, the database of the Chamber Orchestra collection
will allow the Music Library to complete it’s phasing out of the old card catalog system.
6. A well organized database may have some influence on how the various pieces are
shelved in the storage room as far as grouping all the Mozart together ect.
7. A database will help the library keep track of how many individual parts are supposed
to be with each piece and will enable us to recognize when parts go missing.
8. The database could play a part in developing an organized check out system for
patrons who request rental of the Chamber Orchestra library.
9. The database could allow us to list multiple titles of the pieces so that patrons will not
have difficulty deciphering the original foreign language titles...i.e. Bach: Kantate Nr.
21= Cantata No. 21.
10. If the patron wishes to find out whether we have a specific edition of a piece, our
database will be able to them that we have the piece in Boosey & Hawkes, G. Schirmer
or Kalmus editions.
The Interview
An interview was conducted between myself and Daryll Stevens, the Music Librarian of
the Albert Seay Library of Music and Art. Using my own knowledge of the current
system of organization I was able to compose the following questions for Daryll which
would in turn helped me to design an appropriate database for the CC Chamber Music
collection.
1. How do you believe a database would be useful with regards to the CC Chamber
Orchestra library?
2. How was the current organization, i.e. the card catalog system, developed for the
Chamber Orchestra collection? Did whoever develop it decide that the best way for it to
be organized would be to alphabetize everything by composer?
3. With regards to the current organization of the Chamber Orchestra collection, do you
believe that it works in terms of people being able to find specific pieces easily?
4. With a new database designed for this collection, I imagine that we could group things
in other ways such as list all the symphonies together ect.. Do you have any thoughts
about this?
5. Do you think that this database of the collection would be useful insofar as keeping
track of the items in our collection or keeping statistics, should we wish to do so, of how
often the collection is used?
6. If this database proves to be a success, do you think there are other areas of need that
the Music Library would consider building databases for, in a similar fashion?
Preliminary Fields List
Title of Pieces
Type of Piece
Key of Piece
Opus Number
Edition of the Piece
Plate Number of Piece
Composer First Name
Composer Last Name
Instrumentation of Piece
Subjects
Composers
Music
Publishers
Tables
Composers
First Name (Pk)
Last Name
Publishers
Publisher Name (Pk)
Dates of Composer
Type of Piece
Name of
Form
Piece (Fk)
(Pk)
Featured
instruments
Title of Piece
Name of
Piece (Pk)
Alternative
Title
Opus Number
Key of Piece
Instrumentation
Name
of
Piece
(Fk)
Number of Number
Strings
of
Winds
Number of
Brass
Number of
Percussion
Era
Name of Piece (Fk)
Era of Piece (Pk)
Number of
Vocal parts
Number Total
of
number
Scores of parts
(Pk)
Colorado College Chamber Orchestra Database
Composer Name of
last name Piece
(Fk)
(Fk)
Publisher Year
of Publisher
Name
Publication
Number
(Fk)
(Pk)
(Fk)
Alternate
Title
(Fk)
Era of Total
Piece
Number
(Fk)
of Parts.
(Fk)
Relationships:
One-To-One:
Title of Piece ----- Type of Piece (Name of Piece field)
Composers ------ Colorado College Chamber Orchestra Database (Composer Last Name
field)
One-To-Many:
Title of Piece ---Type of Piece ---- Instrumentation ---- Era of Piece --- CC Chamber
Orchestra Database (Name of Piece field)
Business Rules:
1. All music within the Chamber Orchestra collection, MUST be complete in terms of
having all the parts and scores.
Summary of The Design Process to Date:
All of my tables have been designed though I have yet to begin entering any data. So far I
have not encountered any troublesome issues, such as multi-part or multi-valued fields. I
admit it did take me a very long time to finally decide on the appropriate fields for the
tables. Once I did decide on my specific subjects, such as composers, publishers, and
music, I was able to break down each subject into various components such as composer
first and last name, year of publication, title of piece, key of piece ect. This way I was
finally able to have a clearer vision of how I was going to establish the various tables and
establish relationships between them.