Abstract: Amanda Maple and Jean Morrow, Guide to Writing Collectiion Development Policies for Music, Music Library Association Technical Reports, no. 26 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2001).

As mentioned in this book's preface, this volume is adapted in part from the American Library Association's Guide for Written Collection Policy Statements (1996), and should only serve to highlight specifics regarding music collections in print, electronic, and recorded media. The format of the book is simple:

1. a checklist outlining the types of information that should be included in a music library's collection development policy
   
2. an outline of a sample written policy with examples taken from various types of music libraries (research university, conservatory, liberal arts college, sound archives, public library, etc.)
3. a complete collection development policy for Middlebury College Music Library

The book serves as a good reference source for libraries wishing to write collection development policies, but makes for pretty dry reading otherwise. Its convenient outline format, with many relevant examples, can help a collection management librarian build a comprehensive policy with the appropriate specificity to the institution. Morrow and Maple also briefly describe some popular methods for analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of a library's collection: the conspectus approach, and the narrative statement approach.

As I read this book, I was reminded about the huge breadth of music collections, including scores and sound recordings for various instruments, ensembles, genres, styles, cultures, traditions, or popular idioms. I caused me to wonder how collection developers effectively attend to all of these areas. I concluded that perhaps it is impossible, but that having a collection development policy that outlines desired collection levels, and regular reading of that policy, could help the collection developer to remember percussion music, or hard bop, or Renaissance French chansons, or audio engineering manuals, or any other area that is easy to overlook in a music market saturated with Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart.