See Also
Historica edition

Introduction to EMC, second edition (1992), electronic version

Since the appearance of the first edition of the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada (in English in 1981 and French in 1983), EMC has been recognized as the leading general reference work on Canadian music. After the publication of the second edition (English in 1992, French in 1993) and the advent of the World Wide Web in the 1990s, the EMC organization began to plan for its next edition to be mounted on the Internet in order to meet the demand for universal access to timely, accurate information about Canadian music.

In 2001, EMC took a major step in that direction by collaborating with the National Library of Canada (NLC) to make an electronic version of the second edition available on the NLC website. In 2003, EMC began a new partnership with the Historica Foundation (www.histori.ca), which publishes the Canadian Encyclopedia on the Web, to produce an updated edition of EMC. Although the process of revision is projected to last until 2005 or longer, it has already begun and the Historica edition of the EMC is now available at the following URL: www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?
PgNm=EMCSubjects&Params;=U2 .

As the introduction to the first edition stated, EMC aims to describe Canada’s musical heritage and culture in all its breadth and depth: the past and present manifestations of popular, folk, religious, concert, and other forms of music, as well as the educational, critical, administrative, and commercial aspects of music in Canada. The evolution and the raison d'être of the EMC project are fully discussed in the introductions to the paper-based first and second editions, and in the introduction to the 2001 electronic version. Library and Archives Canada will continue to make that edition available on-line for historical purposes, so that researchers will be able to see the evolution of EMC. For anyone seeking current information, we suggest using the Historica edition.

January 2004
Dr. S. Timothy Maloney
Chair, EMC

Introductions to EMC: first edition, second edition, and second edition, electronic version (May 2001)