World Music

Abstract
The term “world music” has been used for decades as a catchall genre to describe any form of music outside of the Western classical tradition. Its use furthers a Eurocentric bubble that others or ignores other cultures and their music. By examining the public-facing catalogs of 13 university libraries across 10 different countries to determine to what extent Non-Western music is included in the collection, how it is cataloged, and if the term “world music” is used to do so; the specific cataloging practices and norms that perpetuate a bias toward Western classical music can be identified and highlighted. Correcting this bias requires university libraries to both collect a larger volume of Non-Western music materials and alter how their music collections are cataloged. This paper concludes by detailing an alternative system of cataloging music collections that affords Non-Western music and cultures the same respect that is given to Western classical music.
Introduction
The academic world of music has long focused the majority of its attention on Western classical music. This preference is clear in performing arts libraries that have collections dominated by Western classical materials and music departments with Western classical focused degrees. However, as interest in classical music decreases in American society, performing arts libraries are finding that patrons are demonstrating increasing interest in materials on other kinds of music. More and more scholars are studying genres such as pop, rock, and hip hop and performing arts libraries are being forced to adapt in order to accommodate this increased demand (Duffy, 2006). The world has also become much more of a global community where students and researchers can be exposed to and seek out music from countries they have never visited and have no connection to. However, as this paper later finds, many performing arts libraries have not caught up to the changing demands of their patrons and still focus mainly on Western classical music. Frequently, all Non-Western music is categorized as one genre, regardless of stylistic elements or country of origin. In library catalogs, course listings, and elsewhere terms such as “world music,” “folk music,” or “foreign music” serve as catchalls for any music that does not fit into a preexisting Western category. This study examines the use of the term “world music” in higher education and seeks to determine to what extent it and similar catchall terms are used to describe the Non-Western musical holdings of university libraries around the world. A collection in which all non-Western music is designated to a single category can indicate a larger bias towards Western music, which in turn leads to fewer Non-Western materials being collected. Libraries are disincentivized from breaking these collections into smaller, more specific categories because the collections tend to make up only a small percentage of their total holdings compared to Western music materials. This paper suggests that, to support user access and decrease the Western-centricity of collections, Non-Western music should be distributed amongst the existing categories used for Western music, and sufficient metadata should be utilized to ensure researchers can adequately narrow their searches to access music within the catalog.

World Music
Though multiple terms have been used as catchall genres to describe anything outside of the Western classical tradition, this study chooses to focus specifically on the use of the term “world music.” “World music” does not have a solidified definition, likely because it does not have the stylistic, or time period constraints that characterize most genres. It was first used by ethnomusicologist Robert E. Brown in the 1960s to describe a course he taught on Non-Western music (Kelleher, 2019). The term has evolved since this initial use to become a genre for any Non-Western music, though the exact definition varies. Ericableu Bartik uses the phrase to “include all musics with ethnic or foreign elements from non-dominant cultures present in a given area” (Bartik, 2010, p. 112). This definition is not a stable one, as what is and is not considered “world music” changes depending on the area. Given the globalization of the 21st century, academics can transcend borders and find value in the work of scholars in any country. However, under Bartik’s definition, the music of these cultures would be classified as world music in foreign libraries but not in domestic ones. Such variances in cataloging would severely impact the ease of access for anyone not already familiar with the collection.
To avoid this, Michael Duffy uses the phrase world music “to encompass all music that originated outside the influence of Western art music” (Duffy, 2006, p. 46). While this provides a uniform definition there are more significant drawbacks. This Eurocentric view is an unnecessary vestige of imperialism. If blues and jazz are considered distinct genres, there is no reason for Chinese, Kenyan, and Mexican music to belong in the same category. In examining Smithsonian Global Sound, Alec McLane found that “world music” seemed to be used as a “catchall for whatever they found difficult to classify” (McLane, 2006, p. 779). There is a bias toward Western music amongst Western musicologists, librarians, and archivists. However, this study finds that a similar Western bias exists in academia outside of Europe and North America. Yet the increase in communication that technology has enabled is stimulating interest in the wide variety of music that exists in Non-Western countries. Performing arts libraries must evaluate how they are cataloging Non-Western music and eliminate catchalls like “world music” in order to flourish in the 21st century.
Literature Review
In his review of the Smithsonian Global Sound database, Alec McLane notes that the “World” category contains 13,085 tracks and includes subgenres of music that could be considered American, such as “African American,” “Cajun,” and “Hawaiian.” Meanwhile, genres such as “Blues,” “Bluegrass,” and “Jazz” each receive their own category- each of which is significantly smaller than the “World” category. In addition, the “World” category contains the sub-genre “Contemporary and Electronic,” despite most of the composers in this category being American (McLane, 2006). McLane’s findings demonstrate that in some cases the genre of “world music” also includes Western music that does not fit into a previously established category, a practice that further bloats the genre and hinders easy discovery.
There is evidence that the lack of Non-Western music in music libraries is a global trend. Christian Onyeji, a Senior Lecturer of Music at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) documented a project he undertook to collect and preserve traditional Nigerian folk music. Onyeji found that of the 282 recordings in the library, 264 are of Western art music. When including the large number of LPs in storage, there are only 54 LPs of African music out of a total of 1,072 (Onyeji, 2006).
Despite the fact that many libraries still focus their collections on Western art music, the demand for Non-Western music has been increasing. Michael Duffy notes in Current Issues in Music Reference that users are demanding broader subject coverage by increasingly expressing a desire to study, listen to, and play music outside of the Western art tradition (Duffy, 2006).
Martin Kelleher writes about a classification project he undertook when his library accepted the transfer of an ethnomusicological CD collection, to be housed with their preexisting collection of Western classical music CDs. Kelleher felt that because “the incoming ethnomusicological collection had classical music of various countries… [the] idea of separating such advanced classical musics of other cultures from the pre-existing predominantly Western classical collection seemed particularly unreasonable” (Kelleher, 2019, p. 43). Kelleher acknowledges that the new collection would be substantially more challenging to catalog based on composer, as was done for the existing classical collection, due to a higher number of compilations and pieces by unknown composers. However, he describes the practice of classifying Non-Western and Western music differently as racist and xenophobic. He argues that by focusing on geography, the artistry of the individual becomes of secondary importance (Kelleher, 2019). That “classical music” can refer to a different form of music depending on the country of origin is an important consideration for the revised cataloging practices suggested later in this paper.
Jennifer Cooper conducted a study by searching the websites, online catalogs, and finding aids of archives that house collections of ethnomusicological field recordings. Cooper’s argument was that members of the culture recorded for academic research should have access to the recordings and literature. By basing her search on the public-facing aspects of these archives, she can gauge whether a person affiliated with the cultural group studied, but not affiliated with the academic institution can access the recordings (Cooper, 2013). The design of Cooper’s study follows many of the same motivations as the study in this paper. A collection that can be viewed by individuals outside the home institution has the potential to reach international audiences, contributing to a corpus of materials that can shared between cultures.
Method
The purpose of this study is to explore the cataloging practices of Non-Western music in university libraries by focusing on the use of catchall terms such as “world music.” Research for this study was guided by a rubric (see appendix A) and used only the public-facing websites of each university and its library. Several institutions in non-English speaking countries had an English version of their website which could easily be viewed. In other cases, the websites were viewed through a translation browser extension. In each case, the university’s main website was used to find basic information about the institution as a whole, such as location, and surface-level information about their music department, namely which degrees they offer and if their department focuses on specific genres. The purpose of this section of the rubric is to put the collections into the context of their use. The faculty of a music department with an ethnomusicology program may be more likely to advocate for more diverse musical holdings.
Finally, a search was conducted in the online catalog with “music” as the only keyword (quotations were not used in the search). On the results screen, the first few pages were browsed to see if the collection trended towards classical music at first glance. Then the sidebar was examined and the parameters that exist to narrow the search were noted. These additional filters also reveal keywords that the library uses to catalog their collection and, in many cases, list the number of resources that match that tag. Using these numbers, it is possible to approximate how much of the collection is made up of any given search parameter. For catalogs that had subject or genre filters, attention was paid to which terms are the most populated and how many results terms related to Non-Western music had compared to those related to Western classical music. Location filters were similarly examined, though these did not exist in every catalog.
In addition to the quantitative data collected from the number of results for each search filter, special attention was paid to the language used on the university and library websites as well as in the catalog. The research questions used to assess each institution were as follows:
1. Does the collection trend toward Western Classical music?
2. How is Non-Western music categorized?
3. Is the phrase “world music” used in an official capacity? If so, how?
Sample
The thirteen universities included in this study and their locations are displayed in Table 1. Universities were chosen by searching institutions with music libraries or prominent music departments. It was particularly important to include Non-Western universities to see if the trend towards Western classical music exists globally. The selection aimed to represent institutions across several continents as well as countries. A number of additional university websites were considered but were not thoroughly examined because they did not have a version in English or were incompatible with translation plugins. The institutions disqualified for reasons related to language or website navigability included ones in continental Europe, India, and South America. The sample is therefore intended to facilitate an initial exploration of norms rather than quantify practices across the entire discipline.

University Location
Harvard University Massachusetts, United States
Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance Jerusalem, Israel
Peking University Beijing, China
Rhodes University Grahamstown, South Africa
SOAS University of London London, UK
Tokyo University of the Arts Tokyo, Japan
UCSI University Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
University College Cork Cork, Ireland
University of Maryland Maryland, United States
University of Melbourne Melbourne, Australia
University of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, United States
University of Toronto Toronto, Canada
Yale University Connecticut, United States
Table 1: Universities examined
Limitations
The scope of this study is deliberately limited to information that is publicly available and easily accessible. Consulting a library’s online catalog gives the approximation of the collection that would be encountered by an outsider but a truly comprehensive examination would require working directly with the library to view their official data. The study is additionally limited to institutions with a website that can be viewed in English, either through an official English version or a format that is compatible with a translation browser extension. Metadata that was written in another language may not translate correctly and so appropriate results may not populate an English language search. A more advanced version of the study would enlist a number of researchers with different language proficiencies.
Results
Vocabulary
The phrase “world music” was used fairly infrequently by the institutions included in this study. The phrase was used in the name or description of a specific collection, in the description of a music department or ethnomusicology degree program, and as a tag or subject field within the narrowing options in the catalog. Multiple institutions used the phrase in more than one of these ways. Figure 1 shows the usage across institutions. Instances of the phrase “world music” in the titles of materials or databases such as The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music were not included in this data, as the universities do not control these names. The nine that did not use the phrase “world music” are not necessarily free of ethnocentric collection and cataloging practices; they merely use different wording. Other catchall terms like “folk music” or “foreign music” were frequently used in lieu of “world music.” However, the data in Figure 1 does not attempt to track all uses of catchall terms. While language is an important aspect of the way university libraries treat Non-Western music, the lack of problematic language does not prevent other problematic practices. For this reason, it is important to further investigate each collection.

Figure 1: Use of the phrase “world music”
Collection Scope
One of the major factors contributing to the tendency to place all Non-Western music in the same category is the comparative volume of works present in the collection. Figure 2 shows that the majority of examined collections either clearly trend towards Western classical music, or are unclear. Only three of the thirteen catalogs clearly trend away from Western classical music. These results are particularly enlightening when compared with Figure 3, which notes some of the degrees offered by these universities. There is only one institution that exclusively offers degrees in Western classical music, though this is not to say the institution does not offer classes on other types of music. Eight institutions offer Master’s degrees in ethnomusicology, and two offer degrees in a specific type of Non-Western music, such as the Tokyo University of the Arts offering a degree in Japanese traditional music. An additional three institutions offer degrees in digital or contemporary music. It is worth comparing these two graphs, as the job of an academic library is to support the students in their studies. A library with a mostly classical collection may be overlooking or even neglecting the students in these non-classical programs.

Figure 2:Trends toward Western classical music

Figure 3: Degrees offered in areas other than Western classical
Current Cataloging Practices
If the Non-Western music in a collection is not immediately obvious by browsing, the question of how a student or researcher can find these materials remains. If a researcher does not already know what they are looking for or cannot generate an appropriate keyword search, their best option exists in the filters that most (but not all) catalogs have in the sidebar to narrow the search results. Figure 4 shows the most popular filters in the catalogs searched for this study. Terms that only showed up in a single institution’s catalog with no synonymous options in any other were not included in the graph.

Figure 4: Most common catalog narrowing options
Geography
There are a number of avenues one can use to find Non-Western music using these filters but the most useful are geography or region and genre or subject. However, the helpfulness of the geography filter is not always reliable, as academic works about a Non-Western form of music will sometimes be listed by the country of origin of the author or publisher rather than the country of the subject matter. For example, if an American researcher writes an article on Balinese gamelan, that work may be considered American rather than Indonesian. However, if the goal of the search is to find music by members of the culture as opposed to by outsiders, this filter is very useful. It is unsurprising that American universities such as Harvard and Yale have a large collection of American materials, as seen in Figure 5 and Figure 6. Figure 7 shows a distribution that only includes scores, as the University of Toronto has separate catalogs for articles and scores. It should therefore be noted that this increases the likelihood of the collection favoring European music, as the use of notation is not prevalent in all musical cultures. This could partially explain why the vast majority of their collection is European music, making up more than the materials of all other locations combined.

Figure 5: Geography in Yale University Catalog

Figure 6: Geography in Harvard University Catalog

Figure 7: Geography in University of Toronto Catalog (Scores)
The more surprising results come from the collections of the Non-Western universities examined. Figure 8 and Figure 9 show the collections of Peking University in China and Tokyo University of the Arts in Japan, respectively. In the Peking University catalog, the number of American materials is more than double the number of Chinese materials. The Tokyo collection, which separates the collection into Western and Japanese books has an even larger majority of Western materials. This divide also suggests that the library does not collect many materials from any other part of the world.

Figure 8: Geography in Peking University Catalog

Figure 9: Geography in Tokyo University of the Arts Catalog
The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance library has an even more skewed collection, made up of mostly German and American materials, as shown in Figure 10. The collection has so few Israeli materials that it is not an option anywhere in the sidebar. In exploring the cataloging norms across several countries, we find similarities between cultures. However, as can be seen in these results, not all trends that transcend national borders are positive.

Figure 10: Geography in Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance Catalog
Genre
Another way to narrow results is by genre. In some catalogs, this is referred to as subject, subject term, or tag. The phrase “world music” is a tag, albeit not a populous one, used in the Rhodes University catalog. The University of Toronto has a subject field titled “foreign music” which is emblematic of the same eurocentrism and othering that makes the phrase “world music” and other catchall genres such an issue (the University of Toronto catalog does not show how many results each subject term contains and so no graph could be made). Instead, the term most often used to describe Non-Western music is “folk music.” Of the universities that had the option to narrow a search in this way, none of them had any more in-depth specifications related to the term “folk music.”
Upon choosing “folk music” as a filter, the results tend to be a mix of music from a variety of different countries. The only instance of an option that specifies a country is Peking University (shown in Figure 11), where there is a subject field for Chinese opera separate from the general opera subject field. Peking University also has the subject fields “Western Music” and “Art Music, Western.” It can therefore be assumed that the “Classical Music” and “Folk Music” subject fields refer to music from China or other Non-Western countries. Other than this example, the universities tend to use the same terms. It is noteworthy that many of the universities such as Harvard, Yale, Rhodes, and UCSI (Figure 12-Figure 15) do not have a subject field for classical music, and instead separate orchestral music from opera. UCSI University (Figure 14) has additional categories for concertos, symphonies, and sonatas. Harvard University (Figure 15) has a subject term “Piano Music” but this contains both classical and nonclassical piano pieces. Practices such as these make it difficult to ascertain the exact amount of Western classical materials in a collection.

Figure 11: Genre in Peking University Catalog

Figure 12: Genre in Yale University Catalog

Figure 13: Genre in Rhodes University Catalog

Figure 14: Genre in UCSI University Catalog

Figure 15: Genre in Harvard University Catalog
*mix of classical and nonclassical pieces

Figure 16: Genre in University College Cork Catalog

Figure 17: Genre in Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance Catalog
Discussion
Though it is unsurprising that American universities have a large collection of American literature, this preference perpetuates the ethnocentrism that is rampant in higher education which serves to keep Western universities and academics in a bubble where outsiders are ignored or overlooked. By contrast, it is more surprising that universities such as the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, Peking University, or Tokyo University of the Arts have more American literature than literature from their own country. Researchers like Kelleher (2019), Onyeji (2006), and McLane (2006) found ways in which Non-Western music is underserved in comparison to its Western counterparts. The results presented further support this view by indicating that even students and researchers outside of Western countries are subjected to the Western bubble.
It should be noted that in the above cases there exists the possibility of an imperfect search. An outside researcher who is unable to navigate the library catalog in the original language is forced to accept whatever results are presented. It is possible that were a search performed in Japanese, the section of Japanese books would be larger. However, this does not make the data irrelevant. One benefit of online catalogs is that the collection can be browsed by researchers that do not attend the university, including those studying in a different country. If an American researcher were studying Japanese taiko and found the holdings of their own university lacking, they may attempt to find materials from the country of origin. There is value in having metadata coded in multiple languages to facilitate this kind of search. The implication of the English language search being dominated by Western literature is that an English speaker cannot escape from the Western bubble even if they seek out Non-Western sources.
Many of the universities examined have moved away from the term “world music” and are instead classifying Non-Western music as “folk music.” During his collection of Nigerian folk music, Christian Onyeji defines the term as “indigenous music types that have been created in and for social, religious, or cultural activities and contexts other than popular… or classical” (Onyeji, 2006, p. 23). Under a definition such as Onyeji’s, folk music is defined by its source or purpose in a culture rather than by its stylistic elements. Therefore, the folk music of two countries could have little to no stylistic elements in common. Though it is debatable whether or not all folk music belongs in the same category, it is clear that classical and popular music explicitly do not fall under this folk music definition. However, classical and pop music from Non-Western countries is frequently put in the folk music category regardless.
Non-Western music getting relegated to one category is a direct result of the Western bubble. When the majority of a collection consists of Western music, the library is not incentivized to develop in-depth cataloging standards for Non-Western materials. It is a more efficient use of time to create one catchall category when only a small percentage of materials would fall into more specific ones. For this reason, collection development strategies that increase the amount of Non-Western materials collected should be a part of any attempts at bursting the Western bubble.
Revised Cataloging Practices
A cataloging system designed to remedy the current imbalance should take advantage of filters to narrow search results. The folk music category can be used for Western and Non-Western folk music alike, but classical and pop music from Non-Western countries should be mixed in with the classical and pop collections that currently only house Western music. The geography or region field should then be split into one filter for the creator nationality and another for the country of origin of the subject. A book about Beethoven written and published in America would be classified as American for the first filter and German or European for the second. With this method, other forms of classical music can be placed in the classical music category, but scholars looking for Western classical music can still find what they need. The proposed system much better supports the needs of Non-Western music scholars without sacrificing the needs of those studying Western classical music.
This will be no small undertaking as it requires updating the metadata of the entire existing collection. However, the importance of this restructuring is far greater than just allowing ethnomusicologists to find materials for their research. Libraries such as the one at UCSI University shown in Figure 14 acknowledge a great deal of nuance to classical music collections, creating separate categories for orchestral music, opera, sonatas, symphonies, and concertos. Meanwhile, all types of music from all Non-Western countries are deemed unimportant enough to be relegated to the same catchall category. As the world becomes more globalized, it is crucial that universities recognize that they are no longer exclusively serving people that belong to the domestic culture. Whether they be the children of immigrants, international students, or students abroad using the online catalog- these collections can and will be accessed by people from all over the world. The current cataloging practices show a lack of respect for the musical cultures of Non-Western countries, as they are not deemed nuanced enough to be deserving of different genre labels. By reclassifying the entire music collection and ensuring all pieces have metadata fields for genre, creator nationality, and subject region; as well as increasing the volume of Non-Western music collected, a library can show the global community that their cultures are considered valuable and worthy of study.

Conclusion
The heavy focus that higher education all over the world places on Western classical music is a vestige of imperialism that makes progressively less sense as the world continues to evolve. With the rise of globalization and the internet, many countries in the 21st century have access to the information of others. No institution with an online presence can assume it will be viewed exclusively by residents of its own country and culture. In the modern world, universities need to consider their place in the larger international academic community. To continue to treat Western music as deserving of numerous categories, even within the larger genre of classical music, while not dignifying Non-Western music with appropriate classification and not making an effort to collect it represents an unwillingness to interact with and collaborate with Non-Western cultures. All music collections, regardless of origin, should have metadata fields for their genre, creator nationality, and subject region. Additionally, genre should be applied using the classification of the culture the music comes from (i.e. Indian classical music should be classified as classical music). Doing so will drastically increase access to Non-Western music without negatively affecting access to Western classical. This proposed classification system allows libraries to better serve a portion of its researchers and present a more respectful and multicultural experience to patrons of all nationalities and cultural backgrounds.

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