A view of music librarianship as seen through its journals: A comparison of Notes and Fontes Artis Musicae, 1977-2007

MLA's Notes and IAML's Fontes Artis Musicae are well known as two primary channels of printed scholarly communication in music librarianship. This article evaluates the similarities and differences between the content of these journals over a thirty-one-year time span in an attempt to identify their strengths and weaknesses, and to determine whether their strengths lie more in the field of music, or in librarianship. Trends in overall subject coverage, and the contributions to the journals by successive editors, are also examined. The article finds that, while the journals do have some common traits, they vary in their overall coverage of particular subject areas. In addition, both journals are wanting in terms of the currency of their coverage. Further research is warranted to determine how well these journals meet the scholarly communications needs of music librarians.