Excerpt from Music Departments of Libraries The Music Teachers' National Association committee on the history of music and libraries presents herewith the summaries of the questionnaire prepared by the committee and sent out by the Bureau of Education in 1917-18. This is the first statement to show the condition and resources of the music sections of public and school libraries, containing 5,000 volumes or over, throughout the United States. The result is both encouraging and discouraging. It is encouraging in that the report shows a fairly wide dissemination of considerable music libraries throughout the country, with some collections of first rank. It is encouraging for the reason that many more libraries report Increasing interest in the music departments, in comparison to the number where music interest is stationary or decreasing. It is encouraging because many of the librarians who report small collections are careful to note that the reason therefor is recent installation of the section, perhaps even the youth of the library itself, or lack of room or of other facilities. The discouraging feature is the lack of interest shown, though not more frequently than might be expected, by librarians, music teachers, and music lovers. One of the prime objects of the committee is to deal with this matter, and now that the information has been collated prompt steps will be taken. The Music Teachers' National Association committee was appointed by the then president, Mr. J. Lawrence Erb, in 1916. As a preliminary to the later activity Mr. O. G. Sonneck. at the time chief of the music division of the Library of Congress, in Washington, read a paper at the annual meeting in New York on the History of Music in America - A Few Suggestions," reprinted in the association's Proceedings for 1916, pages 50-68; and he contributed to The Art World (1917, June, pp. 242-244) an article, "Music in Our Libraries," which has such a direct bearing on the subject of this report that parts of it are reprinted in these pages as an appendix. In the months succeeding Mr. Sonneck prepared a questionnaire, which was sent out by the Bureau of Education to 2,849 libraries. The answers to this questionnaire are summarized in the following pages, with such comment as seems appropriate for certain special cases. This stage of the committee's work now being complete, it remains to progress along other lines, such as an investigation of the large private music collections, anti efforts to promote the larger encouragement of music sections by both libraries and their musical patronage. To this end suggestive lists of desirable books and music may be prepared and made available for interested parties. Even a casual inspection of the reports received from the libraries indicates two important matters. If the collection of music or books on music is small and inadequate, patronage is almost invariably small. A number of librarians realize and mention this fact in their reports. A music section to which additions are constantly being made seldom fails to bring patronage in gratifying proportion to the accessions of musical material. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.