Variations2: improving music findability in a digital library through work-centric metadata

Summary form only given. The Variations2 Indiana University Digital Music Library is a large test-bed project funded in part by Phase 2 of the Digital Libraries Initiative, with support from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. This demonstration shows the current state of the Variations2 test-bed software, focusing on the search user interface. Libraries of digitized multimedia content provide access to virtual entities. In the case of music, where there may be many performances and arrangements of a given work, newer metadata models that are less item-centric or book-centric promise superior search capabilities for digital library users. The Variations2 metadata model is one such model. Like the functional requirements for bibliographic records (FRBR) from the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) our model is work-centric. Moreover, we have implemented a digital music library system based on that metadata model. One benefit of the Variations2 search user interface is the use of music-specific search fields such as key or performer. A second benefit is the ability to navigate directly to the desired work within a multiwork item. A third benefit is the introduction of stepwise disambiguation of the user's search criteria. The disambiguation process varies depending both on what fields the user fills in and the actual content of the digital library. Thus our implementation demonstrates some of the benefits of a work-centric, music-specific metadata model.