IMSLP Forums

IMSLP is a fantastic project for online musical research. I am so glad I do not have to order a score online that I have to pay for and wait for days to receive. It is really amazing how powerful the internet can really be. I am a student at Interlochen Arts Academy, and I cannot believe that I have not meet one person who is aware that there is something on the internet that is this massive and this useful for musicians. It is truly a shame.

Hopefully the MERLOT award will help some of that.

Just a note to say it is increasing -- for instance, a colleague of mine was subscribing to another site to get things he could get free from imslp, and I "re-routed" him. Word is getting around.

Also I just want to say a big thank you to all who help put this together. It has been a hugely helpful resource -- I work in a university whose music library is drastically running out of space, and it will be a big help to have students source public domain works from here, so we can concentrate our budget on contemporary works that have to be purchased.

IMSLP needs a PR manager. I believe that I am in one sense (given that the forum is indeed public relations...) but I don't get... out much?

New composition lecturer came to my uni, he had pretty much d/l all of the 20C scores from IMSLP. (And had such a deliciously untouchable collection of scores IMSLP will not have for quite some time... sadly)

Thanks to me, most of the people at my uni are very much aware of IMSLP and use me instead of asking the forum (which is a shame really).

There are still several university libraries that link to SMA but not to IMSLP. Yale is a prominent example, they have several links to SMA on various pages, but none to IMSLP. I sent the library head an email, informing her that SMA is no longer free and that most of its content is now copied from IMSLP. She replied a week ago that she would forward the message to their webmaster, but nothing happened so far.

Another prominent example is the State Library of Queensland. They also link to the SMA in several places, but not to IMSLP. I contacted them several weeks ago, but sadly they ignored me completely.

We should indeed focus a little of our attention on getting the information about IMSLP out there.

There is another advantage for libraries with IMSLP besides saving space. Many public-domain scores, even as recent as the early 20th century, are fragile or brittle to a greater or lesser degree; and having these scanned and placed on IMSLP would reduce the risk of further damage from multiple interlibrary loans.

(Related to that, a PD score that a library deems unlendable could be shared on ISMLP instead. The only necessity would be time and personnel available to scan it.)

Lyle Neff wrote:The only necessity would be time and personnel available to scan it.)

You should take a look at the scanning robots of the BSB... It's pure candy. (see their website)

I hope that some of us from IMSLP be able to attend the MLA (Muisc Library Association) convention next year to make more libraries aware of the archive here. Lyle's point about late 19th and early 20th century scores is quite accurate. The paper that came into wide use around 1890 was extremely acidic which results in the scores printed on it turning brown and so brittle that they literally crumble into dust.

I think we are going a little off topic .
IMSLP is relatively unknown because it's very difficult to track down.
If you try to search on google "sheet music" or free sheet music there is no trace about imslp.
We should write after Petrucci music library : Free sheet music or something similar.
I think it should help more than anything else.

Carmar1791

IMSLP's proper names is (generally): Petrucci Music Library. The International Music Score Library Project. Much like Wikipedia.

But what you are talking about has been discussed countless times, and I'm note sure why it hasn't been added to the title.

Actually I recently suggested to Feldmahler to add some keywords in the <title> tag (moderately, for we certainly don't want to look like spammers), but he hasn't gotten back to me yet. Don't know if it's technically difficult with MediaWiki. Maybe he'll respond here...

I don't want to change IMSP or Petrucci music library name!
I want only say that we must put on the portal page or the firsts pages some words like "free sheet music" so that the site be easy to search out.If this is spam it's welcome.
I've jut tried to search "sheet music"...and IMSLP is not present.I gave up after the firsts 20 pages!!!!
But I found Sheet Music Archive instead !!!! A photocopy of the entire imslp!!! And it's not free , you must pay for your scans!!!
I think this problem must be solved and no matter about the fact that imslp is the most linked site of sheet music:it must be the most traceable!

Ciao
Carmar

Ps.
A recent research about ecommerce and internet services reveals that you are cut off if you don't appear at least in the firsts 3 pages of google

You know those little icons in people's message board symbols that are adds for sites they subscribe to? The little flashy icon or whatever that's relatively easy to make (or so I'm told)? What if somebody here made that, post it up on IMSLP somewhere with a little "embed" tag so people could embed it into their message board signatures across the web. Eventually, people get curious and click on it. If it strikes there interest, then they tell other people and the snowball effect kicks in. All it would need to be is a little embeddable icon with a little representative picture, the letters IMSLP or "Petrucci Music Library" if you prefer, and a link to the library that would take effect whenever you clicked on the little icon. That's my suggestion for a little free PR.

Dear Leonard,

I am posting in response to your March 1st 2009 post.

First of all, congratulations on your work on the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP).

I recall that when we (State Library of Queensland) received your feedback (January 22nd 2009) about IMSLP, we were excited about this new online music resource.
We subsequently updated some of our web pages (replacing SMA with the IMSLP URL).
E.g. http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/coll/musd/sheet
See ‘external links’ section.
This page was last updated on the 13th of February 2009.

As per the State Library web authoring workflow, the following web pages and guides are now due for revision and will surely be updated accordingly with the IMSLP URL.
http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/coll/musd/musq/reprocright
http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/__data/assets ... ources.pdf

Once again, congratulations and we look forward to the growth of this music resource.

The word is getting out

Kindest Regards,

Elizabeth Rehbein
Librarian
Reference Services
Client Services and Collections
State Library of Queensland