Digital Media Reviews.(ARTstor, American Music Center, DRAM)(Website overview)

For information regarding the scope of this column, consult the headnote in the September 2008 issue (p. 136 of this volume). The dates of access for each review of an online source indicate the dates during which the reviewer was evaluating the resource. All Web sites were last accessed on 19 November 2008 to verify availability.

DRAM. Anthology of Recorded Music. http://www.dramonline.org. (Accessed May-October 2008) [Requires a Web browser, an Internet connection, QuickTime 6.5.2 or later (preferred); pricing for academic institutions based on Carnegie Classification, $495--$1,995 per year; pricing for public libraries based on population served, materials budget, and periodical subscriptions, $250-$800 per year.]

Now known simply as DRAM (the phrase "Database of Recorded American Music" appears nowhere on the site except as a "formerly" note in the mission statement), the focus of this collection remains American music, especially American contemporary music, and the core of the collection consists of recordings previously issued in physical form on the New World and CRI labels. This original collection is being expanded by the addition of content licensed from other labels with significant coverage of contemporary American music, including: Albany Records; Artifact Recordings; Cedille Records; Cold Blue Music; Deep Listening; Frog Peak Music; Innova Recordings; Lovely Music; Mode Records; Mutable Music; Open Space; Pogus Productions; and XI Records.

The electronic availability of this content, especially the landmark New World and CRI recordings, at what is a very reasonable price in the online resource marketplace, should be cause for great celebration among librarians, scholars, and all those interested in American music. Unfortunately, the utility of the database is greatly undermined by the infrastructure provided for accessing the recordings. In short, while it is relatively easy to find something interesting to listen to, finding a specific recording or a group of recordings related to a research interest is difficult or impossible due to the complete lack of topical or genre access, less-than-pristine lists of names and terms for browsing, and the squandering of the powerful indexing capabilities of Lucene by not providing users an advanced search interface. (The present review describes DRAM as it appeared and functioned in the summer and fall of 2008. In the course of preparation, I sent a summary of my criticisms of the site to Tyler Sinclair, library relations manager at DRAM. Mr. Sinclair was very receptive to my input, and acknowledged that several of my points were issues DRAM was working to address, or hoped to address in a coming redesign.)

On visiting the DRAM Web site, the user is met by a large logo and blurb, along with a "Featured Content" item. Together these two elements take up over half the screen space. Below them is a narrow band with a search box and five tabs labeled: Browse; Search; Featured Content; About; and Help. Below these are five browse lists: Composers; Performers; Ensembles; Instruments; and Labels. Under each heading is a representative list of nine to twelve entries with a "more" link leading to the complete browse list for that category. Oddly, the examples in the "Instruments" list are not presented in alphabetical order, as are the other columns, nor are they grouped by instrument families. This apparent randomness is a sign of things to come. From the examples the user infers that "Performers" means individual musicians, while "Ensembles" refers to specifically named performing groups. There is nowhere to browse for generic types of ensemble, such as "mixed chorus," "string quartet" or "band." (The addition of genre tags is an enhancement reported to be in active development.)

Turning now to the tabs: the first is labeled "Browse," and clicking on it leads to the browse page for Performers. The category headings and images for all five browse categories appear near the top of the page, allowing the user to switch from one browse list to another. Above these, the ribbon with the search box and tabs remains, below a smaller version of the logo. Each page displays eighty entries, each accompanied by an indication of the number of database records to which it is attached. Navigation is by "next" and "previous" buttons, or by typing in a "jump to" box. In actuality, the "jump to" box functions almost like a search box: typing, for example, "gardner" will retrieve only those persons with that last name, rather than showing that part of the master list. There are no "first," "last" or specific page number options. Despite the distinction noted above between "performers" and "ensembles," a number of corporate names do appear in the "Performers" browse list. These entries are not replicated in the "Ensembles" list, and so would be missed by a user browsing in the correct category. Similarly, the occasional personal name also turns up in the "Ensembles" list. More importantly, ensemble names beginning with "the" appear under "T" in the browse lists, and several groups appear in two places--with and without the initial article, each entry leading to different lists of links. The "Composer" browse list is somewhat cleaner, and authority control does seem to have been exercised to collocate all works of a given individual. But this list also includes some names of performers who are not composers, the occasional ensemble name (New World Singers), some poets (Guillaume Apollinaire), and various attribution statements such as "Traditional" and "American carol." These instances persist despite an audit of the metadata completed by the publisher.

Beyond browsing, access to the content of DRAM is provided via the search box, which remains at the top of every page. This box allows the user to type in a word or words to be searched for in a single field chosen from a dropdown menu: Titles; Composers; Instruments; Record labels; Liner notes; or Performers. DRAM uses the powerful Lucene information retrieval library, which supports fielded searches, Boolean and proximity operators, and wildcards. But the user will only discover this if she clicks on the "Search Tips" link adjacent to the search box, and even then the onus remains on the user to apply the proper syntax within the single search box to take advantage of these features. One might expect the "Search" tab to lead to an advanced search interface, with multiple entry boxes and dropdown menus for field limits and Boolean operators. Alas, no. Rather, it simply functions as another "Go" button for whatever search is typed in the "Quick Search" box. The publisher has promised that they will be "increasing the robustness" of DRAM's search capabilities.