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I'm about halfway through my Masters of Library and Information Science program at Syracuse. This semester, I'm taking advantage of a consortium opportunity with University of Illinois to take their Music Librarianship & Bibliography course. One thing that has been on my mind since I've started that course has been the role, or possible role of such a position in a drum corps. Does DCI, or any of the member corps have a music library? If not, would they be better served if they did?

I realize that staff budget is horrendously tight across the board, and having a staff member dedicated to such things as procuring sheet music, archiving arrangements, shows, media, drill sheets, etc., and even processing or documenting rights the corps has obtained can be too much for the budget to bear, especially if such things are already taken care of ad hoc, but it would seem that having one dedicated staff member for such duties would free up those that currently handle them so that they can focus on areas more suited to their positions.

Would anyone with experience in these duties at the corps or even DCI level care to share how they are handled currently? I'd love to see how diverse the solutions are. Maybe there may be some way to standardize and improve things, make it easier to obtain rights, keep track of show changes, scores, and other information that could definitely streamline how a corps operates.

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I'll bump once for a little more visibility before letting go. Is there anyone out there who knows how a corps handles procuring sheet music, archiving arrangements, shows, media, drill sheets, etc., or processing or documenting rights, and would be willing to share some insight?

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It's all computerized now. Super fast and easy. Arranging rights are secured through Tresona (or in some cases directly from the publisher), arrangements and compositions are created in music notation software, drill is created (mostly) in Pyware or similar software, and everything is stored and archived electronically. 

 

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Thanks! I figured it was such. I know of Tresona, the various notation and drill software. As far as being stored and archived electronically, I'm guessing that means an external hard drive that can be passed around to the various staff needing access? How often do the designers go back to past work to bring back some past favorites (think Malaguena, last year's pre-show announcements for BD, etc.)?

I'm probably taking what is a simple, straight-forward process that individual corps have handled for decades without even thinking about it, and applying institutional norms that aren't necessary in the current structure of the activity, but as I said earlier, I'm taking what I'm learning, applying it to a situation that I am somewhat familiar and one which I feel might be underserved, and trying to see if it is something that can solve a problem (if one even exists) or  if it would just create a problem.

Certainly, even if the corps have been operating smoothly, it's probably better to leave things as-is, but would DCI as a whole (and even DCA) benefit from having a way to take all of the information from a given season, all of the video, judge tapes, audio, scores, design media, placement data, etc. and cataloging all of that and archiving it for future use or historical purposes?

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6 hours ago, Legoman said:

Thanks! I figured it was such. I know of Tresona, the various notation and drill software. As far as being stored and archived electronically, I'm guessing that means an external hard drive that can be passed around to the various staff needing access?

 

Naw, man it's 2018. We use Dropbox.

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