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The Art and Music collection of the SF Public Library
Jayn Pettingill
Walking up to the Art and Music collection on the fourth floor of the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL), most patrons wouldn't realize that they are literally surrounded by music in the form of the Dorothy Starr Collection. While the majority of the music and art floor's materials are in plain view, this particular collection is discreetly stored in a series of cabinets that wind their way around the perimeter. To date, there are approximately thirty thousand pieces of music lining the fourth floor walls at the SFPL.
This collection had its beginning in 1950, when, retiring from a singing career in New York, Dorothy Starr headed west for San Francisco. She opened The Music Stand on Hayes Street, and specialized in selling used sheet music. The 1950s was a period of technological transition; sheet music fell out of favor as 45 rpm disc recordings and inexpensive record players surged in popularity. This proved to be a boon for Miss Starr, who came to own one of the largest sheet music collections in the country.
Jayn Pettingill is a Bay Area musician and composer who is also a student in the San Jose State University MLIS program. This article is based on a conversation with Dr. Jason Gibbs, curator of the Dorothy Starr Collection at the San Francisco Public Library.
A veritable human database of song, Dorothy Starr was a gatekeeper of specialized knowledge. Highly respected by musicians in San Francisco, she was often asked to find a particular piece, or suggest titles from previous eras or various genres. She was also a valued resource for the reference staff at the SFPL. In the days before the World Wide Web and electronic databases, librarians would often call her with music inquiries or send patrons to her store:
Many times I got very beautiful scores or rare things, and I didn't put a price on them. And some people would come in and so 'Oooh! This is lovely, how much is this?' I'd say - a hundred dollars. Because there were not good vibes - They should not have it! And somebody else would come in - you know you could see how they lovingly turned the pages, and oh, 'How much?' - '25 cents' - And I still was making money. (Dorothy Starr, taped interview)
At the time of Dorothy Starr's death in 1990, The Music Stand had approximately 300,000 pieces of music. The Friends of Dorothy Starr, a group of loyal customers, banded together to ensure that this enormous collection could continue giving its wealth to an appreciative public. After a series of negotiations, the San Francisco Public Library agreed to take the inventory. For several years, the music sat quietly in a basement at 45 Hyde Street in the care of one intrepid SFPL librarian, Dr. Jason Gibbs, now curator of the collection.
Dr. Gibbs found that about 20% of the pieces were popular songs from the 18th century, Tin Pan Alley tunes, and hits from the 1920s to 1980s. Valuable and beautiful cover art adorns many of these pieces. Though fragile from age and wear, they still retain the glow of eras gone by. In terms of value to researchers and collectors, whether for the art or the rare melodies within, this part of the collection is highly prized and access to it is limited.
A greater portion of the collection contains pedagogical materials for various instruments, unabridged opera scores and popular song compilations. While not as valuable as the sheet music collection, they have helped round out the SFPL's holdings with remarkably little, if any, overlap. These are part of the general circulation and are specially tagged with The Music Stand logo to identify them as part of the Dorothy Starr Collection.
Dr. Gibbs and a team including one music cataloger and a very small group of volunteers have cataloged about 30,000 items from the Dorothy Starr Collection. The process has been slow due to the constraints of time and space. The archived collection, too fragile for browsing, has been catalogued into a publicly-accessible sheet music database. With special permission, a patron can view and photocopy a piece from the archived collection. The remainder of the collection threads its way around the periphery of the fourth floor, waiting to be cataloged. As the cataloging continues, Dorothy Starr would be satisfied to know that her collection is indeed appreciated and being well used. |
