Conference Agenda

Knowledge synthesis, including systematic reviews, scoping reviews, meta-analyses, and other rigorous methodologies, are gaining prominence in music research. These transparent and reproductible approaches enable researchers to identify, analyze, and synthesize all available data on a topic, thereby establishing best practices and identifying new research avenues. Unlike traditional narrative literature reviews, knowledge synthesis follows strict protocols with clearly defined inclusion/exclusion criteria, systematic search strategies, and dual screening processes to ensure scientific rigor and reproducibility.

A rapid search across major databases (ERIC, RILM, Music Index, Medline, and PsycInfo) demonstrates a growth in the publication of knowledge syntheses in music since 2020. This growth reflects the expanding application of evidence-based methodologies across diverse music research areas, including music education, music psychology, and music therapy.

Librarians play a crucial role in ensuring the quality and success of these complex research projects. Research demonstrates that systematic reviews co-authored by librarians are associated with lower risk of bias compared to those having no librarian participation. Librarians contribute essential expertise in developing and documenting search strategies, selecting appropriate databases, managing references, producing PRISMA flow diagrams, and writing methodology sections.

This presentation will explore the evolving landscape of knowledge syntheses in music research and examine how librarians are transitioning from consultative support roles to full collaborative partnerships as co-authors, ultimately strengthening the scientific integrity of music scholarship.

L’élaboration des synthèses de la connaissance (revues systématiques, études de la portée, méta-analyses, etc.) gagne en importance dans le domaine musical. Ces méthodologies rigoureuses, transparentes et reproductibles permettent de repérer, analyser et synthétiser l’ensemble des données sur un sujet, identifiant ainsi les meilleures pratiques et les nouvelles avenues de recherche.

Cette présentation explorera la croissance significative de la publication des synthèses de la connaissance en musique depuis 2020, leurs applications en recherche musicale et le rôle crucial que jouent les bibliothécaires dans leur élaboration, du soutien à la collaboration comme coauteur·e, pour assurer la qualité et la rigueur scientifique.

One of the challenges in managing manuscript music collections is the need for continuous comparison between sources due to attributional conflicts, anonymous, spurious and/or untitled works, uncertain works belonging to different centuries. Cataloguers often tend to exclude anything that is not identified by at least one uncertain name. The presence of these anonymous works in several genres is overwhelming, as is currently known, for example, and remaining within Italy, in the handwritten sacred music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and in the genre of cantatas of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Yet today, with the increasingly strong presence of musical incipits in online bibliographies, identifying the authors and compositions in these forgotten sources is a project within the reach of any library with manuscript music collections.

Currently (December 2025), the Italian OPAC SBN catalogue lists over 280,000 musical manuscripts catalogued by countless libraries in Italy, but only 3,871 of these are unattributed or anonymous manuscripts, of which 2,247 have been identified (in RISM, anonymous manuscripts in the same period were just over 21%). There is no doubt that their identification, at least in the OPAC SBN, was the condition that determined their later cataloguing. As regards identification strategies, comparisons can also be made with digitised works, as in the case of the pilot project musiconn.scoresearch, which, however, currently returns redundant results. To date, the musical incipit remains a fundamental element among the metadata of musical manuscripts for their correct identification; yet it is not always completed.

Nicholas A. Brown-Cáceres, Acting Chief of the Library of Congress Music Division, discusses the hundred-year history and replicability of the Library's world-renowned concert series, Concerts from the Library of Congress. The series was founded in 1925 by an act of Congress that resulted from the vision, leadership, and philanthropic support of Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (1864-1953). Over the past 100 years, the series has been an important avenue for the Library of Congress and U.S government to play a permanent role in supporting the advancement of music performance and composition by engaging with the American and global public through radio broadcasts, digital media, commissioning of 700+ new works (e.g., "Appalachian Spring" by Martha Graham and Aaron Copland, live events, and cultural diplomacy. The concerts have enriched the Music Division's collections, expanding opportunities for user engagement and leading to major acquisitions of the papers of composers and performers. This session offers a history of the series, how its major supporters have cultivated a legacy of philanthropy, how the series has enriched the Library's collections, and how the Music Division leverages private funding to advance its public mission. The concert series is presented as a model that can be adapted at any size cultural heritage organization to develop a sustainable series of public programs that broaden the reach and relevance of archival collections. Brown-Cáceres draws on the rich stories and objects represented in the presenter's new book, Let the People Hear It: Concerts from the Library of Congress at 100 (2025).