Tagg’s
(mainly) popular music studies bibliography is now the basis of
Contributing to
The IASPM and Fondazione Cini
Popular Music Studies Database
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Contribution
request 2008-12-20
Please
contribute. No expense involved!
Nothing to pay. Nothing to donate.
Everything to gain.
You probably already know that IASPM has an online bibliographical database, hosted by the Fondazione Cini (Venice), at http://iismc.cini.it/.
The database is already quite useful but it could become an extremely useful, even invaluable, resource IF ONLY PEOPLE WOULD CONTRIBUTE to it.
CONTRIBUTING
to the database COSTS NOTHING and
it takes VERY LITTLE TIME.
In fact you'll gain MORE from the database
than you spend giving to it.
What? Explain!
[1] If you enter details of your own work into the database, more people will get to know of it and use it. That means more citations, etc. It's free advertising.
[2] If you find useful important or useful texts about popular music and if you need to quote such work or include reference to it in your bibliography, etc., you have free storage space for your bibliographical data in easily retrievable form in a safe place on an Italian server. You don't have to organise your own database or spreadsheet and you can just cut and paste bibliographical data from your own and from everyone else's contributions into whatever essay. article or book you're writing.
The long and short of all this is as follows.
If you write about
popular music yourself or if you come across useful writings in our field
of study, please enter the relevant bibliographical details into the IASPM
database.
How do you do that?
[1] Go to http://iismc.cini.it/
[2] EITHER enter some words from title of the work you want to add to the database
(select "Words in the title" instead of "Author")
OR enter the name of its author[3],Press Find to see if the work already exists in the database.
[4] If, as is usually the case, the work isn't already in the database, click SUBMIT
and fill in the online bibliographical data form[s].N.B. In order to avoid Wikipedia-type problems, someone will vet your entry and publish it (very rarely not!) into the database, normally within a week of your submission.
• For detailedmore instructions about using the database for searches click here.
• For detailedmore instructions about contributing to the database click here.
• If you have any problems with or if find inaccuracies in the database,
please tell us about them.• If you think useful stuff is missing from the database, CONTRIBUTE (see above)!
• If you would like to regularly participate in improving the database, please contact the database administrators
So, not a good idea then, this database thing?
1. Dinosaurs for private knowledge
If you're the sort of person who prefers to keep knowledge and information to yourself (except of course when you publish it in peer-reviewed journals to further your career), or if you're the sort of intellectual control freak who wants the transfer of all knowledge in your mental territory to pass through your hands, you probably won't want to share your bibliographical information with the rest of us. You'd probably better register as a Dinosaur of Private Knowledge Ownership if you haven't already done so. You dinosaurs, like the Wall Street sharks, are an endangered predatory species and your extinction will be welcomed by all but a very few. No communal, collective, cooperative or collaboratory arguments will ever convince you, so you can stop reading now.
2. Everything for nothing
Perhaps you think that constructing, expanding and developing a popular music studies database is not your job, even if it may be in your interest. Excuse me but if it's not your job why should it be anyone else's? As an adult, do you really think you have the divine right to enjoy the fruits of everyone else's labour without contributing anything yourself? Oo-oo-oo! Your Majesty! We're your humble servants, are we? I don't apologise for this provocative tone. If you think everyone else is here for you and not you for them, you are bound to take offence at what I'm saying!
3. No interest
Perhaps you think the database is not all that interesting or useful. Perhaps you never write about popular music, perhaps you never inform anyone else about popular music, perhaps you never read anything about popular music, perhaps you have no pupils or students in popular music, perhaps you don't want to know anything new or different about popular music, perhaps you don't want to know where you can read work by different authors in different languages about popular music from different parts of the world. In those cases, I don't think you would waste time and money being a IASPM member, in which case you probably wouldn't be reading this in the first place.