Recovering the Literature of Earlier American Music Periodicals

FAIN: FA-52525-06

Mary Wallace Davidson
Trustees of Indiana University (Bloomington, IN 47405-7000)

This project seeks to gather detailed information about some 320 19th-century American music periodicals (titles, dates, location and condition of exemplars, existence of surrogates, editorial history, use by scholars), to achieve a comprehensive current assessment. The research involves bibliographic preparation, consultation with other scholars, and onsite examination of the periodicals themselves. The project will thus arrive at a rationale for indexing and preservation criteria. Results of this research will be shared with the editors of the Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals, and reported through articles in the journals of both the Music Library Association and the Society for American Music.