Music Collection Development and Management in the Digital Age by Kirstin Dougan Johnson (review)

Reviewed by: Music Collection Development and Management in the Digital Age by Kirstin Dougan Johnson Peter Shirts Music Collection Development and Management in the Digital Age. By Kirstin Dougan Johnson. (Music Library Association Basic Manual Series, no. 13. ) Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2023. xvi, 247 p. ISBN 9780895799043 (paperback), 110. Bibliography, index. In this volume, Kirstin Dougan Johnson updates two books by Robert Michael Fling, Library Acquisition of Music (Music Library Association Basic Manual Series, no. 4 Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004) and Guide to End Page 640 Developing a Library Music Collection (Collection Management and Development Guides, no. 14 Chicago: American Library Association, 2008). The landscape of music library collection development and management has changed since those books were published, not only because of new publishing, discovery, and access models for music and media but also because of the increased emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion in music collections. Since the scope of this book could be quite large, Johnson is very clear about what issues and subjects are out of scope. That said, Johnson is comprehensive regarding what she decides to cover. One additional note regarding scope: while the title of book includes the phrase "in the Digital Age, " only a minority of the content (though still a sizable amount) covers collecting online or streaming content; the majority of the book covers collecting physical items. Those music librarians familiar with Johnson's previous research have probably already purchased this volume and read part or all of it. And they would not be disappointed: this book is well researched and well written, and Johnson provides an excellent overview of the processes and important issues in current music collection development and management. Music collection managers can often feel isolated, and a book like this can help offer a new perspective or simply show that we are not alone in our approaches or struggles (see especially chap. 3, "Music Discoverability, Identification, and Discovery"). As Johnson notes in the preface, this book would also be a good (if perhaps overwhelming) textbook for "students studying music librarianship and collection development in general" (p. ix). Parts of the book could also be used to advocate or explain the special consideration of music materials to supervisors who do not have musical training; the list of soft skills and tasks for music collection managers on pages 55–59 might be especially illuminating for this audience. The book is easy to navigate: chapters and sections are short, so that those searching for a particular topic can easily find the information they need without too much scanning; there is also a useful index. The introduction and chapters 1–3 undertake masterfully the huge task of simply defining specialized vocabulary, processes, and other information without much discussion. For example, the beginning of chapter 2, "Music Media, Electronic Resources, and Open Educational Resources (OERs), " is perfect for a short demonstration of the sheer complexity of music metadata. Much of the rest of book—especially chapters 5 and 7–11—could be described as a series of questions. Johnson is not lecturing about how to develop collections as much as asking relevant questions to help other librarians determine the right approach for a particular situation. For example, in chapter 5, "Shaping Music Collections in an Interdisciplinary Era, " Johnson prompts librarians to make decisions about collecting breadth and depth, making it less of a guessing game (though to summarize the chapter conclusion, it is still a guessing game). Almost any librarian will find a question in chapter 5 that will cause them to reevaluate how they are collecting. Johnson uses those questions to build up to a collection policy section (pp. 84–86, with a sample collection policy in appendix A, pp. 209–14). Other question-filled sections on the acquisition of antiquarian/rare materials, gift evaluation, disaster planning, and inventory (shelf-reading) will be boons to anyone doing these activities for the first time or revisiting them after a break. In chapter 11, "Collection Assessment, " Johnson deftly describes the pitfalls of the assessment End Page 641 of collections of scores and recordings, among other formats, and emphasizes that assessment should have a purpose and be tied to action. She also. . .