International Association of Libraries and Museums of the Performing Arts

Société Internationale des Bibliothèques et des Musées des Arts du Spectacle

Proposal for the Preparation and Publication of the Fourth Edition of Performing Arts Libraries and Museums of the World (PALMW)

17. Internationaler SIBMAS-Kongreß / 17ème Congrès International de la SIBMAS / 17th International SIBMAS Congress, 1.-9. September 1988, Mannheim

Bericht / Actes / Documentation. Red.: Liselotte Homering. Mannheim : Städtisches Reiß-Museum, 1990. pp. 188-191

I.

Description

A. Size

Held to about 1000 pp. (present Third Edition has 1179 pp.), and smaller page size than the present 8 1/4 x 10 1/2 inches.

Although present estimate of the number of entries in the Fourth Edition will be at least 25% more than in the Third, in terms both of number of documentation centers reporting and of size of holdings. (Information gathered for the Third Edition is now approximately ten years old.)

Increase a result of proliferation of number of documentation centers collecting performing arts materials, and of a more careful monitoring of these collections.

To be contained by:

1. use of a language which is
• abbreviated: employing standard abbreviations coded to a key in the Introduction in five major western languages (French, English, Spanish, German, Russian); and based upon similar accepted systems of abbreviations (and possibly pictograph-symbols) found in such reference works as Bowker's American Library Directory 40th Edition, and polyglot dictionaries of library and archival terms;
• schematic: following an outline syntax rather than a formal grammatical sentence order, and having a diagrammatic page organization.
2. more efficient use of page space, smaller type fonts (more readable because of abbreviational and schematic formating), reduction of introductory material to little more than the explanation of how to use the directory, briefly told in the five languages.

B. Format

Book, preferably bound in hard cover, with option for soft cover for cheaper purchase by individual scholars, or for libraries preferring to do own binding in boards.

Microfiche, for libraries wishing to use this reference means, using standard accepted format.

Of these two, the book is the preferred option. In each case the format should make the work easy to use, readily understandable and completely legible.

C. Content: computer-generatable, compatible

1. Fourth edition: Information solicited from informants via an initial schematic questionnaire organized so that its answers can be easily entered into a data bank; there to be held and systematized to produce a schematized display of entries for each performing arts library/documentation center, as well as a select no. of indices for easy accession to the material;
• through an appropriate software/hardware, the resulting data bank information should be employed to produce the book (or microfiche).
2. Subsequent editions: to be produced more efficiently and economically by:
• periodic canvassing of informants;
• requesting only additions to or modifications of previously submitted information contained within the data bank.
3. Questionnaire for the Fourth and subsequent editions to be computer-compatible and related to the system of organizing information of the data bank and its printed result.

D. Methodology

1. Editors/publishers (with the aid of support staff) devise and distribute:
• a questionnaire,
• schematic in form (a check list), computer compatible,
• reduced to two kinds of information:
• essential, e.g.: character and extent of collection, identification, location accessibility, etc.
• optional, e.g.: history, names of staff, etc.,

(thereby to simplify the task of the curator in filling out the form, and thereafter of the personnel inputting the information into the central data bank);

to:

• the curators of the 458 performing arts libraries and museums whose entries are in the Third Edition;
• the curators of the estimated hundred or more additional performing arts documentation centers discovered since the last edition;
• the said questionnaire to be returned by a given deadline.
2. The additional information about the identity (and, to an extent, the holdings) of the previously unreported libraries and museums having performing arts collections will come to the attention of the editors by means of a Board of Review that will be set up by them to survey the major divisions into which the world has been divided for their purpose: Scandinavia, United Kingdom, Western Europe, U.S.A.-Canada, Latin America, Near East, Far East, Australia-New Zealand.

The International Association of Performing Arts Libraries and Museums (SIBMAS) already has several divisions according to national or cultural grouping, that can serve as models for this process, since several have already been functioning in this way for the Third Edition.

The divisions will serve the purpose of expediting the process of ingathering of information and making it more accurate. Ordinarily this division will proceed on the basis of a common language or contiguous geography, making use, whenever possible, of already existing organizations. When these divisions, however, prove too large for the purpose, they will be broken down. So, for example, the USSR will be separated from the rest of Europe, for it has an already existing tight internal organization of performing arts libraries/museums, and what is more, an important contact in Mme. Nina Mintz who has already provided this service for the Third Edition. Or, the USA will be divided into four major regions together with its non-contiguous states and territories, each under a Board of Review member. These members will be chosen by the SIBMAS Commission on the PALMW for their interest in the project and expertise/leadership in the theatre holdings of their areas. It is estimated that there will be about a Board of Review members.

The Board of Review members individually will:

• for the Fourth Edition (and thereafter periodically) report to the editors lists of libraries/ museums having performing arts holdings hitherto not listed in PALMW;
• receive copies of the answered questionnaire either directly from the responding institution in their area or from the editors;
• check the accuracy and completeness of the returned questionnaires from their own more intimate acquaintance with the institution's holdings and staff, in their respective areas;
1.  If economically feasible, in the interests of ensuring the accuracy of each entry, computer-generated printouts of the schematized text of each institution's entry will be mailed to that institution, to be returned (with corrections, emendations, as needed) by a given deadline date.
2. Thereafter, final editing of copy will ensure by editors, and printing of new edition by publishers.

II.

Perceived audience

With the cost of the Fourth Edition considerably reduced (perhaps to $50-$60 from the more than $100 of the Third Edition), it is reasonable to suppose that the number of copies that could be sold would be doubled, trebled or even quadrupled, given a world-wide market and an enterprising marketing effort, over previous sales.

The Third Edition sold only 600 copies with apparent little marketing effort on the part of the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) in Paris.

A. The theatre libraries and museums, both those who are already SIBMAS members and those listed now or discoverable for the Fourth Edition.
B. Reference libraries in North a nd Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Near East.
C. Individual theatre historians and theatre researchers in theatre departments, and foreign language departments, particularly if the price could be halved from its present cost.
D. University libraries in universities having theatre departments that give graduate degrees in performance, history, literature and criticism, whose students need to know "what information is where" for their studies.

Lists of prospective purchase can be obtained from such organizations as ICOM, IFTR, IFLA, as well as ASTR, MLA and ALA.

III.

The volume is a unique tool for students of the performing arts in its

• ease in use, understandability, legibility for readers of at least one of five major languages spoken in the world;
• world-wide coverage;
• depth of coverage for each institution having performing arts holdings; coverage of all the performing arts: legitimate (dramatic), musical, dance, festival, mime, puppet/shadow, music hall/variety theatre, as well as the circus, cinema and radio/television;
• coverage of theatre holdings in parts of the world (USSR, India, China, Japan) hitherto seldom listed or little described in western reference publications;
• currency (with the use of computerized, regular commercial publication processes).

September 20, 1988

Alfred S. Golding
Co-Editor, PALMW
Chair, PALMW ("Blue Book") Commission.

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