Archival Guidelines for the Music Publishing Industry

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The history of the music publishing industry resides not just in the printed scores, which have been assiduously collected by libraries for decades, but also in the business records of the companies and in the personal recollections of the professionals who comprise those companies. Today more and more publishing houses, large and small, are changing hands or leaving the scene entirely. In such circumstances, the time, expertise, and money needed to care for a firm's archives may not be easy to marshall internally, and the potential for outside assistance or cooperation may not be explored. Whenever old company records are put aside, dispersed, or discarded, another part of history, quite possibly embodying the lifework of generations of individuals, is in danger of disappearing forever. This regrettable outcome (and it is indeed a fact that the records of numerous music publishers have been irretrievably lost) is of great concern to historians of music and culture, to librarians whose responsibility it is to preserve historical documents and make them accessible, and to a growing number of music publishers who see their own heritage threatened.

As understood in these guidelines, a music publishing archive is a systematic documentary record of a music publishing company: its activities, publications, history, and people - both its employees and the composers whose works have been published. Archives have both practical and cultural values. A well-maintained archive is, first of all, an indispensable part of an active publishing enterprise. Contracts, records of copyrights, royalties, licenses and fees, other legal and financial papers, back files of published music, and correspondence - all are essential to the conduct of daily business. In the event of mergers or acquisitions, orderly documentation is a positive element in a company's saleable value. Archives also offer source material for promotion and public relations: for example, advertising, anniversary events, journalistic profiles, etc.

There is also a wider cultural importance in archives, in that historical understanding depends fundamentally on documents …