The Search Page

The SearchPage is a Web Application designed to access information keyed to the choral repertoire. In the first instance, it provides information about the hire of musical scores for use in rehearsal and performance by Australian choirs that subscribe to the Canberra Choral Society’s National Music Lending Scheme. The scores are held by subscribing choirs and are registered in a database that is accessed by The SearchPage. For more information about the Music Lending Scheme, email “service” at the domain address “choirmusichire.info” or the scheme administrator “plevick.mls” at the domain address “netspeed.com.au”.

Prior to going online the Music Lending Scheme was a simple list of scores that choirs had purchased for their own use and which were stored in their libraries. The list was augmented by a card file managed by the scheme administrator who recorded the names of the choirs holding the scores and some contact details. During the design and development of the Music Lending Scheme Online, a fully articulated framework for the choral repertoire, in which the creative actors, their works and published editions of their works were represented as entities, was established. That framework supported the assemblage of the pre-existing information into a database and enabled it to be augmented with new information.

The database has grown both in organisation and content and has become a subset of the choral repertoire. The SearchPage is an application designed to browse the choral repertoire and to provide access to a range of information that might be keyed to it. Sources for scores comprise but one category of information. The task that lies ahead is to identify other categories of information that are equally compelling and to include them. The key to the accomplishment of that task is the enablement of the collaboration of the choral community in it.