Self-Publishing and Musicology: Historical Perspectives, Problems, and Possibilities

Abstract

Although the terms "publishing" and "self-publishing" have meant quite different things at various times and to various individuals, publishers today decide which documents will be produced and for what purposes. This article examines the evolution of self-publishing past and present, especially (but not exclusively) insofar as musicology is concerned. Important self-publications discussed or at least mentioned are John Milton's Areopagitica ; editions of music by Telemann, C. P. E. Bach, and Muzio Clementi; some of the books and magazines written and sold by Upton Sinclair; the samizdat of 1960s and 1970s Soviet dissidents; Richard Wagner's autobiography Mein Leben and Mary Burrell's unfinished documentary Wagner biography; fanzines of various kinds; and the celebrated Anthology of American Folk Music , for which editor Harry Smith compiled an influential set of homemade program notes. Since the 1960s the rise of desktop publishing, new forms of digital word-formatting and -retrieval systems, and the Internet have challenged musicologists and other scholars to think outside the box of traditional, hard-copy, peer-reviewed monographs; in a few cases, online periodicals and other kinds of publications have begun to be accepted. One example of recent self-publishing is Anthony Linick's biography of his stepfather, composer Ingolf Dahl, also reviewed separately in this issue of Notes . Whatever the problems associated with it, virtual publishing offers libraries as well as scholars and their audiences a variety of new opportunities.