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The purpose of this paper is to examine women composers’ use of online communities of practice (CoP) to negotiate the traditionally masculine space of music composition while operating outside its hierarchical structures.

The authors employed a mixed methods approach consisting of an online survey (n=225) followed by 27 semi-structured in-depth interviews with female composers to explore the concept and use of CoP. Content analysis was used to analyze the survey responses and interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to interpret respondents’ lived experiences as relayed in the interviews.

The findings reveal that the online environment can be a supportive and safe space for female composers to connect with others and find support, feedback and mentorship, increase their visibility and develop career agency through learning and knowledge acquisition. CoP emerged as an alternative approach to career development for practicing female music workers and as a tool which could circumvent some of the enduring gendered challenges.

The findings suggest that online CoP can have a positive impact on the career development and sustainability of women in male-dominated sectors such as composition.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

This paper investigates the semantic structure underlying DBpedia, one of the largest and most heavily used datasets in the current Linked Open Data (LOD) landscape. The analysis attempts to shed light on this new type of knowledge organization tool.

The research followed a case study methodology to analyze DBpedia using the domain of jazz as the application scenario.

The study reveals an evolving knowledge organization tool where different descriptive and classification approaches are employed concurrently. The semantic constructs employed in the DBpedia knowledge base vary significantly in terms of their degree of formalization, stability, cohesiveness and consistency. As such, they challenge the tolerance threshold for data quality and the traditional notion of authority control.

The analysis is conducted on a limited portion of a large knowledge base. Initial findings provide a basis for further research and study.

Revealing the knowledge organization underlying DBpedia increases the understanding of its power, its limitations and its implications for the new semantic context provided by LOD. Having an understanding of the range of entities and properties available enables LOD users to formulate queries with higher precision.

This study is the first conducted from the perspective of the knowledge organization community.

The purpose of this paper is to present a variety of current resources associated with electroacoustic music suitable for updating academic and large public library collections.

The approach taken in the paper is to identify resources meant to provide guidance in locating appropriate resources and to identify specific resources regarding electroacoustic collections that are grouped in several categories for ease of reading.

The complexity of definition of electroacoustic music and its interdisciplinary nature has had a negative impact on availability of collection development guides for electroacoustic music. Furthermore, resource formats associated with this type of music are heavily dependent on technology and change with great frequency which makes them challenging to keep up with.

The paper offers practical advice about updating electroacoustic music collections.