Music Classification (Schedule For Colon Classification)

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About the book

The technical staff in the libraries is facing acute problems in classifying the Indian music books. The existing provisions in DDC and CC are insufficient and unhelpful. The present volume is an effort to provide a specially designed schedule of library classification to the library fraternity so that they may classify the Indian music literature easily.

The Present book is the result of twenty years labour. During this period, the schedules were designed, drafted and tested. This work has been designed within the framework of CC6. These schedules have been well tested by classifying all the Indian music books in the Library, Faculty or Music & Find Arts, University of Delhi.

The book shall be very useful to the students and teachers of library science departments. For the library staff engaged in the classification work, this book is must.

About the Author

Dr. Mohammed Haroon, Deputy Librarian in Delhi University Library System, has completed 38 years of his professional career in librarianship. He has obtained post graduate degrees in Political Science (1971), Persian (1985), Library & Information Science (1982) and Ph. D in music (2002) from Delhi University.

Dr. Haroom has authored seven books on library science and music. He has contributed two research papers on Muslim names in Library Science International Conference. In addition, his articles have been published in various Indian journals. Because of his multi disciplinary knowledge, for his books and articles he has ventured into the subjects that are more or less untouched by scholars/writers.

At present Dr. Haroon is looking after the Library, Faculty of Music & Fine Arts, University of Delhi.

Preface

Indian music is the oldest music systems of the world. From time to time, the scholars have contributed to the spiral of Music knowledge that has descended upon us in the form of oral traditions, manuscripts and published works in many languages. In the late nineteenth century, the Britishers started education at university and college levels.But prior to it, some musicians had established music teaching institutions as early as 1871. After independence, central and state governments made all efforts to provide education to all and music got its due share. Today more than a hundred Indian universities provide music education at all levels. The recorded music registered its advent in 1902 when T W Gainberg came to India and recorded the native talent on ‘wax process’. This was a welcome experience for Indian music.

India music is very rich in its traditions with glorious past and promising future. Yet there are many dark lines in silvery clouds. Preservation and maintenance of music materials is poor. Manuscripts are scattered with no proper care and documentation. Earlier British and Indian gramophone companies were commercial firms unconcerned with preservation of Indian musical heritage. The British Government also failed towards its duty of establishing some kind of music library, archives or academy. The early recorded music from India almost been lost whatever remains is in private custody with a high risk of being lost.

Today more than a hundred Indian universities offer research courses in music and produce large number of Ph. D’s each year. Most of such universities do not have separate music libraries. Here the music collection is schemes of classification e.g. DDC OR CC that are unsuitable and insufficient for the vast literature of this subject that has manifested itself into many branches. Many indices, guides and catalogues were scanned to locate material related with music libraries, archives and collections. The result showed that only two articles have appeared in the Journal Sangeet Natak. Practically there is no literature on music libraries in India.

I am looking after the Library, Faculty of Music & Fine Arts, University of Delhi since 1986. For classifying books on Indian music, first DDC 18 was used but the work was abandoned. Later CC6 was used for the same job that met the same fate.

For the last twenty years, I have been working for designing the depth schedules for Indian music. The progress has been slow as these have been evolved step by step. Once draft for these schedules was ready, these were tested classifying the books. So many shortcomings were noticed and the changes were made. I hope that my labour will be successful and the work shall be helpful to the libraries in their efforts for organization of their music collections. These schedules have been drafted in the frame of CC6. All the schedules of CC6 shall be used with it. Practically, this is only extension and expansion of the main classes MNR and NR.

Dr. S Majumdar as the Head of the Head of the Delhi University Library System, University of Delhi has always been the source of inspiration, guidance and encouragement to his colleagues. I am obliged to him. I am thankful to Prof. Anjali Miittal, Dean Faculty of Music & Fine Arts, for providing peaceful academic environment in the library. The Faculty library was my laboratory where I conceived, designed and tested the drafted schedules. I own my sincere gratitude to staff members-Mr. MP Mishra, Mrs. Anju Bisht, Mr. Maha Singh, Mr,Dhan Raj and Mrs. Chitra for their full cooperation.

Last but not the least my special thanks to my wife Shama, children Wasi and Tooba for their encouragement to carry on my work. My grand children Maham, Fahad and Aamna should be appreciated for allowing their nanaji to complete his home assignments.

Foreword

During my long innings of librarianship in various top libraries, I have confronted with difficulties faced by library classifiers. It is true that foreign library classification schemes e.g. Library of Congress (LC) or Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) have little information for classifying literature related with Indian religions, culture and performing arts including music. Dr. Ranganathan’s Colon Classification (CC) sixth edition and the new seventh edition have scanty provisions for Indian classic and dance. In Indiana many universities and other music education institutions are fully dedicated to the performing arts. These institutions have large size libraries. They are experiencing difficulties in classifying their music collections. Practically literature for music librarianship is not available.

Dr. Mohammed Haroon is a well known author with half a dozen books and more than a dozen articles on the subjects/topics that are more or less untouched by others. This small book is a valuable result of his years’ labour. I am pleased to know that he has tested these schedules by classifying the music collection of his library. In the last he has provided classified index of the music books and articles. This section provides ready made class numbers and shall be much useful to the classifiers. This index convinces the readers about shelf arrangement of the music collections. They shall be able to browse all the books on vocal music under NR at one place followed by writings on music instruments under NRV. The folk music is an emerging field and printed material is coming out in large quantity. Documents related with folk music shall be classified in the class number NRY.

A depth schedule for Indian music was drastically needed and Dr. Haroon has successfully accomplished the job. I hope the library fraternity shall be benefited by this book.

I congratulate him for his efforts and wish him success inlife.

Contents