The SACO Music Funnel Project was formed in 2010 and falls under the Library of Congress Cooperative Cataloging Program known as SACO (Subject Authority Cooperative Program). Members of the Music Library Association (MLA) were charter members of the SACO Music Funnel Project. The goal of the project is to promote and facilitate the creation of authority records for medium of performance terms (LCMPT), genre/form (LCGFT), subject terms (LCSH) for music, and demographic/group terms (LCDGT) for performers and musicians.
Recent funnel activities and projects:
- The SACO Music Funnel Coordinator was one of two appointees to represent MLA on the new LC Genre/Form Terms Advisory Group of the Library of Congress Policy, Training, and Cooperative Programs Division, along with the outgoing leader of the MLA-CMC Vocabulary Subcommittee LC Vocabularies Maintenance task group (Anne Adams).
- The funnel report was given at the Cataloging and Metadata Town Hall during the Music Library Association Conference in Cincinnati, OH on March 1, 2024. The slides from the MLA-CMC Town Hall report are accessible through Knowledge Commons.
- In 2023, approximately 6 LCGFT terms, 10 LCMPT terms, 13 subject headings (LCSH), and 2 classification numbers submitted through the Funnel were approved.
- Also in 2023, a slate of new and revised minstrelsy headings were approved on LCSH approved list 2304. This project was a collaborative effort with the MLA-CMC Vocabularies Maintenance Task Group and the SACO Music Funnel Coordinator. The MLA-CMC blog post, “New and Revised LCSH Headings for Minstrelsy Terms” provides additional information on the minstrelsy project.
- Lastly in 2023, Māori terms in LCMPT were updated to include the macron following similar revisions to Māori subject headings. These revisions were submitted alongside a proposal for taonga puoro, the traditional musical instruments of the Māori people of New Zealand, and revisions to kōauau, a flute of the Māori people of New Zealand.
- In 2021, vocal terms in the LCMPT were revised to decouple concept of gender from vocal ranges of medium terms. The MLA-CMC blog post, “Changes to the Library of Congress Medium of Performance Thesaurus for Voice and Chorus Terms,” provides additional information on this project.
- Lastly, information on submitting proposal is found on the SACO Music Funnel webpage hosted on the MLA-CMC website. See also, “SACO Music Funnel Guidelines” under Tools for fuller examples of draft music term proposals.
Future projects and initiatives including working with colleagues at LOC and the LCGFT Advisory Group to assess combined terms in LCGFT with respect to music terms.
Reposted from MLA-L; authored by Leonard Martin, SACO-Music Funnel Coordinator