Page History

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Normal search method

Tasks

Comments

1

Cornell library home page.  Type in composer and title or short form.

Completed all but task 3 without prompts.

Task 2 (Die Zauberflote) comments: 

• Expected to see K number towards beginning.  
• When looking for librettist, noted Wikidata field not as easy to find.  For opera, librettist important contributor. 

Task 3 (Four sonatas for violin and continue): Prompted to look at included works section. Then, found work info button. 

• Looking for word “Fanna”.  
• Once clicked, information made sense and was helpful for doing cross-references. 

Quote: “You do my research for me. That’s marvelous”

Quote: “More information is always better than less” 

2

Youtube.  Don’t normally search catalog for recordings.  Would use title when searching. 

Completed all tasks without additional prompts

Task 1 (Vivaldi sonatas): Found RV but didn’t know what it stood for. 

Task 4 (Stranvinsky): Found information in table of contents first and then quickly found work info button below. 

Easy enough to figure out.  Catalog numbers useful when title isn’t particularly useful.  K number then becomes part of title or alternate title. 

3

Search by title, composers, specific edition, performer (especially for recordings) 

Completed all tasks without prompt except Task 2. 

Task 2 (Die Zauberflote): Saw librettist in contributors and other roles.  Prompted to scroll down and then saw librettist also listed there. 

Quotable/referenceable: Catalog numbers are confusing.  Having laid out all the numbers is illuminating to someone trying to get a handle. 

4

Composer and name of recording, or keyword search

Completed all tasks without additional prompts. 

Work info button solved information overload problem in a way that still makes that information accessible. 

Important to know source May trust transcription of information from CD more than publicly editable database. 

Translations of titles is useful, but unclear how to implement this feature.  

Non-catalog resources: if widely held knowledge, would use Google search.  If more esoteric, may use online encyclopedias such as Grove music or Oxford music online to find information like first performance data or historical information. 

5

Cornell library website using keyword, title, composer

Completed all tasks without additional prompts

If could search by ensemble type and years, that would be a big help. 

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Tasks realistic

Languages

Wikidata properties

Catalog numbers

Useful features

Suggestions

1

Conceivably do all the tasks, with most basic ones with greater frequency.  Not many patrons ask for first performance information.  Query for librettist possible. 

Don’t expect language to be in traditional library catalog page.  Alternate forms in card catalog for title. Search by uniform title?

Don’t normally look for non-bibliographic info but useful to have.  Catalog codes are bibliographic.  Librettist. 

“Catalog numbers” preferred term.  Used for cross-references.  Kochel put works in chronological order, so useful info.  Also catalogs can include snippets of music with each title and bibliographic info like editions, dates of composition, performance, publication, etc. Useful contextual information to get a handle on the entry. 

First performance location may be useful for focused research.  Thankful information available quickly and reliably. 

Online catalog can be considered as a study guide.

2

Don’t generally work with classical music.  Don’t often use opus numbers/k numbers, etc.  Closest task: looking for book editions, first volume, when published, translation. 

Would expect to find other language titles as close to the German title as possible. Title line or language field.  When assigning to students, would want English title even if original in German.  For self, would want original language title. 

Clearly identified asterisk to indicate source.  Catalog numbers useful.  Tonality and instrumentation helpful.  If cared about history, then historical info also useful. 

Familiar with some nut not all.  Know about K.  Use catalog numbers to distinguish between pieces and understand chronology and grouping. 

Click to get more info allows initial entry to be less info heavy and then info that don’t often need can be visible later. 

K number wasn’t listed as K (said “Kochel” instead). 

3

Don’t need date of first performance.  RV and Fanna numbers may be useful for ordering pieces. Librettist may be useful for cataloging.  Mostly check for different performers of work since people want specific recording.  Contributors list useful. 

Next to the title with a little link. Link between recording and other language titles?  Other forms of this work may be a helpful place to put these other language titles. 

Saw and noted Discogs source first. Unclear if they identified the asterisk as mapping to Wikidata as source. K number very useful. Instrumentation.  Catalog numbers useful.  First performance date is interesting for researcher but not for me. 

Familiar with them.  Useful to determine which piece you are looking for. 

Use Discogs all the time.  Good for modern music and soundscape music.  Think different languages for title would be helpful. 

Discussed the use of the subject line on the item page e.g. clicking on “Sonatas (violin and piano) -> scores and parts”, could see what’s in the catalog, filter by composer, and look for scores. 

4

Would look for catalog numbers as do use library catalog for RV/Opus and other catalog numbers.  Would not look for performance date or expect information would be there.  Do not typically look for librettist in catalog but may use other sources. 

Not sure.  Instinct to look on Mozart info page to look for metadata field with language info.  Possibly look at “other forms of this work”.  (Clicked on “other forms” and looked at language facet).  

Can see Discogs source.  Indefinite wording for “some” of this information.  If the wording had been “this information”, would have looked at the asterisk.  Glanced off the asterisk since the wording was the same as Discogs. Location of recording may be relevant for very specific research question but not otherwise.  Catalog numbers useful for translating between different performance editions.  In manuscripts where names can be inconsistent (e.g. diacritics), would depend on catalog numbers for search.  Tonality may be interesting as some, though not majority, of pieces identified solely through tonality.  Instrumentation info is often inconsistent and would not expect to see this in the library catalog page.  Librettist may be useful if searching for pieces by a specific librettist, otherwise would go to other sources to find this information. 

A given piece may have multiple catalog numbers.  Having a central repository which provides all the catalog numbers for a given piece.  Would search for catalog number they are familiar with.  Tends to be vernacular agreement (agreed upon shorthand) regarding which catalog number to use.

(Covered in other answers)

Contributors list has long strings of info.  “Other contributors” is a partial list followed by “more” link and that feels more user-friendly.  Like the work info button approach, although found it confusing at first since not used to it in the library catalog. 

5

Look more for new music (recent composers) and less older music like Mozart,  Don’t use catalog numbers as much as peers although have looked for alternative catalog numbers. Searched for librettist.  Probably use first performance of work. 

Helpful to see other titles by name or copied down in notes or “other titles” field.  Useful if system search understood the mapping between titles in different languages (i.e. searching for “magic flute” would still direct to “Die Zauberflote”). 

Correctly identified asterisk as corresponding to Wikidata source.  Useful: First performance date, librettist, catalog numbers, first performance location, opus number. Instrumentation is most important piece of information. Tonality is a mixed bag. 

Familiar with K and Back numbers. Otherwise use infrequently. 

Catalog numbers, first performance date, location, librettist info all useful.  Would use codes to cross-search elsewhere.  Search by dates quite a bit.  Sometimes search by language if performance sung in another language.

Great work!