Evaluation of the music collection at the National Institute of Education Library

Abstract

This research was carried out at the National Institute of Education Library to determine the coverage and comprehensiveness of its music monographic collection. Three selected bibliographies were list-checked against the Library's holding in order to determine the extent to which selected titles are available in the collection.The results show that the Library is consistently weak in most subject areas in its music collection. It lacks coverage in its collection of core music materials, this as revealed in its low percentage of holdings when selected chapters from the Basic Music Library were checked against the Library's holdings. The findings also show that although the Library supports the Institute which focuses on education, it only has holdings for 25.5% for all the book review titles taken from 121 issues of the Music Educators Journal. However, the Library fared relatively better, with 71.5% holdings, when a list of "Recommended Readings/References" drawn up by the Institute's academic staff was list-checked.