Moving Beyond World Music: An Exploration of the Classification of Non-Western Music in Higher Education and Where to Go from Here

The term “world music” has been used for decades as a catchall genre to describe any form of music outside of the Western classical tradition. Its use furthers a Eurocentric bubble that others or ignores other cultures and their music. By examining the public-facing catalogs of thirteen university libraries across ten different countries to determine to what extent Non-Western music is included in the collection, how it is classified, and if the term “world music” is used to do so; the specific practices and norms that perpetuate a bias toward Western art music can be identified and highlighted. Correcting this bias requires university libraries to both collect a larger volume of Non-Western music materials and alter how their music collections are described. This paper concludes by suggesting some best practices for classifying music collections using faceted vocabularies that afford Non-Western music and cultures the same respect given to Western art music.