Diversifying Music Collections by Design: Responding to the needs of Iranian music researchers in North America


The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion, 2(1-2), 2018 
ISSN 2574-3430, publish.lib.umd.edu/IJIDI/ 

Diversifying Music Collections by Design: 
Responding to the needs of Iranian music researchers in 
North America 

Houman Behzadi, University of Toronto 
Blair Kuntz, University of Toronto 

Keywords: collections, diversity, Iranian, music, Persian language 

Publication Type: poster 

Abstract 

This poster provided an overview of a collection building project at the University of Toronto 
(U of T) Music Library. The undertaking was a response to the increasing interest in Iranian 
studies, and, particularly Iranian music, at U of T. The Music Library hosts the largest academic 
music collection in Canada including electronic, print, and audio-visual resources from many 
world regions. Nonetheless, its collection remains primarily Eurocentric. The project, 
therefore, addresses a perceived gap by collecting materials from an endangered musical 

culture. 

Behzadi and Kuntz explained the tools used to select and acquire the materials. These included 
the identification of the key titles missing from the UTL collections, consulting Persian 
language catalogues and bibliographies, and two trips to Iran. They also discussed the 

challenges involved in providing access to this collection. In the end, Behzadi and Kuntz 
discussed potential ways of promoting the collection and bringing it to the attention of library 
users at the Faculty of Music and beyond. 

The following reference was consulted in the preparation of the abstract 
and poster.  

Behzadi, H. (2017). Building a collection of Iranian music at the University of Toronto Music 

Library. CAML Review/Revue de l'ACBM, 44(3). 

Houman Behzadi (houman.behzadi@utoronto.ca) is the Music Collection Development Librarian 
at the University of Toronto Music Library. He is the chair of the CAML Collections Committee 
and a member of the Music Library Association’s Resource Sharing and Collection Development 
Committee. His research surrounds the future of music collections in Canada, especially in 
connection with the recent devaluation of the Canadian dollar. 

Blair Kuntz (blair.kuntz@utoronto.ca) has been the Near and Middle Eastern Studies Librarian 
at the University of Toronto since 2003. He catalogs and performs collection development for 
Arabic, Turkish and Persian-language materials. 

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http://publish.lib.umd.edu/IJIDI/,

	The following reference was consulted in the preparation of the abstract and poster.