The National Library of Canada's
Canadian Music Periodical Index

by Dr. S. Timothy Maloney Director, Music Division, National Library of Canada

The Canadian Music Periodical Index (CMPI) is an automated database which now includes over 30,000 entries indexed from 475 Canadian music journals, newsletters and magazines covering the period between the late nineteenth century and the present day. It focuses on articles and news items covering all aspects of musical activity in Canada. Over 200 current periodicals are being examined and indexed, as required, on an ongoing basis at the National Library of Canada (NLC). Groups of article titles are uploaded to the CMPI database every month or so.

CMPI began in the mid-1970s as a card file of data about biographical articles on Canadian musicians and composers. During the project to publish the first edition of the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), CMPI was a useful tool for compiling bibliographies and cross-checking information for the entries. After a hiatus for lack of funding, it was revived in 1983 when the NLC Music Division received funds to engage indexers from the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada (EMC) on annual contracts to recommence the indexing of Canadian music periodicals. From that time until now, indexing has covered a much broader range than just biography; the EMC contracts have also included retrospective indexing of the periodicals which had previously been indexed for biography only, as well as many periodical titles which had never been indexed. Through December 1992, this indexing proceeded manually on file cards. Beginning in January 1993, indexing of current Canadian music periodicals was automated and data were thenceforth input directly into an InMagic database management program, which was available only in the NLC premises. Between 1993 and 1997, several thousand retrospective records were also entered into the CMPI database.

During the summer of 1996, with funding from Industry Canada's SchoolNet Digital Collections Program, the NLC undertook four digitization projects to enable it to mount access tools and Canadian content on the worldwide web. Two of those projects took place in the Music Division: one created the "Glenn Gould Archive" virtual exhibition and web pages (about which we'll report next year -- phase 3 of it is still underway as we go to press), and the other, CMPI. The CMPI digitization project was overseen by music documentalist Florence Hayes, with significant help from Gilles St-Laurent (Music Division Audio Conservator and computer whiz) and Marlene Wehrle (Head, Printed Collection, Music Division), as well as computer programmers from the NLC's Information Technology Services, and others.

At the beginning of June 1996, there were approximately 12,000 digital records already in our in-house CMPI database, and about 16,000 records still on index cards. After digitally scanning a sample set of cards via Optical Character Recognition (OCR), it was decided that it would be less time-consuming to input the data manually into the database. Problems related to the variety of typewriter fonts used over the years, lack of uniformity in the layout of the cards, and the presence of hand-written annotations on a significant percentage of them rendered these file cards poor candidates for OCR.

When the inputting had been completed, further steps involved:

• proof-reading and correcting all entries in the newly expanded 28,000-entry database;
• double-checking all periodical titles in the database against the NLC's mainframe database, AMICUS, and revising and correcting, as necessary (various journals have had similar titles);
• creation of digital thesauri for subject-headings and periodical titles;
• verification of the official bilingual names of corporations, associations and periodical titles, where such exist
• exporting the data from InMagic to a web-searchable database application, and verifying that no data were lost or corrupted in the process;
• creation of a reliable, bilingual query page for the web version; and,
• design and creation of the bilingual web pages, including background information about the site and a searching guide.

Each entry in the CMPI database has been assigned one or more subject headings, as appropriate. These include the name of an individual or an association, institution, ensemble, etc., or a broad heading such as Reggae, Cultural Policy, Literature Set to Music, Orchestras, and so on. The complete list of Subject Headings is available on the CMPI web site to demonstrate the range of topics which are covered.

CMPI is completely bilingual, and entries can be searched by any combination of subject, author, article title, periodical title, geographical area, type of article (e.g., obituary, review, interview, etc.) or date. A Searching Guide is mounted on the site with instructions and more information regarding search strategies.

All of the work to create the web version of CMPI was accomplished in 12 short weeks in 1996 by a team of four students. To meet Industry Canada's requirements, the NLC had to have the project finished by the time the students returned to school in September. It was a stressful but satisfying summer for those who were involved, and the CMPI database was indeed mounted on the NLC's worldwide web site by September '96.

Despite our best efforts at trouble-shooting, there could still be residual anomolies or problems with the database. If you or your patrons discover any when using CMPI, please bring them to our attention. Correcting them could be as simple as changing a single line of computer code.

The NLC Music Division hopes that its CMPI database will be a useful tool for research into aspects of Canadian music and musical activity in Canada. Do bear in mind that CMPI is only an index. It does not include texts or abstracts of the articles it lists. To obtain articles in periodicals not held by your library, photocopies can be sent by the NLC's Inter-Library Loan service.

CAML Newsletter/Nouvelles de l'ACBM, vol. 25/No. 3, November/novembre 1997.

To contact the Music Division:
Phone: 613-996-5115 or 1-866-578-7777 (toll free in Canada and the U.S.)
Fax: 819-934-7272
Electronic Mail: mus@lac-bac.gc.ca