Music Librarian and Faculty Collaboration: How an Historiography Assignment Improved a Music History Class

Abstract

This article recounts the collaboration between a music librarian and a music history professor, who worked together to craft a challenging historiography assignment for music majors. We shared two goals: getting the students to perform new and advanced research using sources and techniques previously unknown to them, and teaching them that the reception of a piece or composer changes over time and place. This project and its outcomes may serve as a useful model for integrating research into music history classes, making students aware of how history gets written, and forging a successful collaboration between librarian and professor.