Dena J Epstein

Dena Julia Epstein, née Polacheck, was an American music librarian and musicologist whose work focused on the music of the United States, particularly music publishing and African-American folk music, as well as various aspects of music within libraries. She was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on 30 November 1916.

Her training combined general studies with library science. She graduated from the University of Chicago in 1937 and then took courses in library science at the University of Illinois, where she obtained her bachelor's and master's degrees in 1939 and 1943. Between 1939 and 1943 she worked there as a cataloguer of art and music. She continued at the Newark Public Library as senior music librarian (1943–1945) and, between 1946 and 1948, at the Library of Congress as a music cataloguer and reviser. From 1964 until her retirement in 1986 she was curator of recordings and associate music librarian at the University of Chicago.

In professional associations she served as president of the Music Library Association from 1977 to 1979, and in 1986 that association honoured her with a distinction for her outstanding services to music librarianship. In 1996 the association established the Dena Epstein Award for archival and library research in her honour.

Her publications include studies of slave music in the United States before 1860, the history of the Chicago publishing house Root and Cady, the folk banjo and African-American spirituals, such as Sinful Tunes and Spirituals (1977). Her legacy endures above all in the documentation of American music and in the history of music libraries, fields in which her work remains a point of reference.