American Memory: Technical summary
Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885
Future American Memory Collection
Collection Overview
- Description
-
Tens of thousands of songs and instrumental pieces registered for
copyright in the post-Civil War era. The importance of music in
every-day American life is evidenced by the rapid growth of America's
music publishing industry during the Post Civil War era. An in-depth
presentation of the development of popular music in America, this
collection contains a diversity of items by American and European
composers including songs, marches, dances, and operatic arias. Most of
the works are reduced for the piano or piano and voice. Many have their
original lithographic covers depicting important artists, political
figures, events, and scenery and scenes of life in America during the
19th century. The types of songs in this collection range from patriotic
to sentimental. Few foreign composers are represented in this collection.
- Source collection
- Copyright registrations in the collections of the Music Division
- Technical features
-
Sheet music with notation; opportunity to read and "perform" musical
selections. Most pages 11x14 inches in size. Reproduced as page-images,
captured from microfilm. Access provided by composer and title but the
database does not include
subject terms for the music or cover illustrations; opportunity for
automated subject analysis of song lyrics and pictorial elements.
- Original material formats
-
- Printed documents (page-images only). English, standard musical
notation.
- Number of original items
- Total ca. 45,000 items (1870-1885)
First batch available early 1998: ca. 9,500 items (1870-1874)
- Status of collection
- Not available online as of December 1997. Release of first batch
expected in
early 1998. The most similar materials currently online are the
playscripts (English and Yiddish) in the
American Variety Stage collection.
- Public access:
- The Library of Congress is not aware of any U.S. copyright or any
other restrictions on the materials in this collection.
See notes on rights and
restrictions provided by the Library to users of similar collection.
Aids to intellectual access
- Type & granularity
- Non-MARC bibliographic records with fields for composer, title, and
publication information. Each bib.
record describes a single item.
- Linking to digital reproductions
- Bibliographic record contains identifiers
used in "directory name" for each metaobject representing a document.
Numbering system in place to support page-turning.
Digital reproductions
Total file-space for digital reproductions:
6 Gbytes (for first batch)
| Printed
Matter
(documents) |
Archival (printing-quality) images |
Service (page-turning) page-images |
| Marker |
File extension ".tif" or ".jpg" |
File extension ".gif" |
| Formats |
TIFF (ITU Group IV compression)
JPEG for pictorial covers |
GIF |
| Tonal
resolution |
TIFF: 1 bit
JPEG: 8 bits |
4 bit |
Spatial
resolution
(approx) |
TIFF: 300 or 400 dpi
JPEG: 200 dpi |
500 pixels wide |
| Quantity (approx) |
64,000 TIFF
3,500 JPEG |
67,500 |
| File size |
70-300 Kbytes |
10-40 Kbytes |
| Sample |
Sample cover page
Sample notation page
|
Sample cover page
Sample notation page
|
Note: All quantities refer to the first batch of sheet music being
digitized. Later batches might also be made available.
Library of Congress contribution to Digital Libraries Initiative - Phase II
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