Once again, the staff of A-R Editions graciously allowed us to invade their space for the late-May Board meeting. In addition to meeting space for the Board, our business office staff provided internet connections and troubleshooting, photocopying, snacks, and answers to last-minute questions. As he has done for the past several years, Matt Grzybowski provided an overview of workflow and processes for those new to the Board. Highlights of the meeting included approving the 2006–2007 operating budget, discussing San Diego hotels with our Convention Managers, and reviewing reports from committees. There are interesting projects underway! We discussed using the MLA Fund, and allocated some $13,000 of the $26,000 available for 2006–2007. We decided, once again, to support a live internet connection in one meeting room for the duration of the 2007 annual meeting. The remainder was directed to funding travel expenses for several committees, including the Bibliographic Control Committee, the Legislation Committee, and the Joint Committee on the MLA Archives. The Board also approved the position of Development Officer for the association. The Development Officer will chair the Development Committee and will work closely with the Board to coordinate MLA's development efforts.

The Board will meet from 21–24 September in Rochester, New York. In addition to reviewing reports from committees, we will set the convention budget, and will see the results of the Pittsburgh Program and Local Arrangements Committees' work. Both MLA's and SAM's program committees (Mark McKnight, MLA Chair, and George Boziwick, SAM Chair) have been in frequent contact as they work to make the Pittsburgh meeting a joint meeting, rather than a meeting of two societies at the same time in the same hotel. Jim Cassaro and the Local Arrangements Committee also have been hard at work arranging tours, a concert, and all of the other activities that make our meetings successful.

We will be searching for a new Placement Officer, a new Technical Reports Series Editor, a new Copyright Web Site Editor, and a Development Officer. Pat Fisken has agreed to chair the search committee for the Placement Officer and Jennifer Ottervik, our current Placement Officer, has graciously agreed to serve on the committee. Deborah Campana will chair the search for the Technical Reports Series Editor. Other members of these two committees will be identified soon. Linda Blotner and Gordon Theil will co-chair the search committee for Copyright Web Site Editor; they will be joined by Amy Dankowski and David Gilbert. Ruthann McTyre has agreed to chair the search committee for a Development Officer, and will be joined by Pam Bristah, Bob Follet, Nancy Nuzzo, and Jim Zychowicz. Look for position announcements and schedules for filling the positions later this fall.

The fall also brings election season, not only to the United States, but to MLA. We will be electing three Members at Large to the Board of Directors. In addition, we will be voting on a proposed constitutional amendment to add a membership category for paraprofessional staff.

Watch for two fall mailings: the ballot and conference materials. The ballot mailing will include information about each of the candidates running for the Board, and additional information about the proposed membership category. Participate in your association by voting. The conference mailing will include all of the materials necessary to register for our joint meeting with SAM.

And, on the odd chance that you have not yet renewed your membership, please do so now!

If you visited the Fine Arts Library (FAL) at the University of Texas in 2003 when MLA's annual meeting was held in Austin, you might have thought, "busy library." Averaging over 240,000 circulation transactions annually, the FAL provides the campus with services and holdings related to music, visual arts, dance and theater. Not long after our MLA meeting, the staff began brainstorming about how the main level of the 1979 building could be revitalized, cosmetically and functionally. Soon thereafter, they made a proposal to the Dean of the College of Fine Arts who agreed to match funding by the library system. This allowed for the renovation of the main floor of the 45,000 square foot space that was completed early this year.

According to music librarian and curator of the Historical Music Recordings Collection, David Hunter, decisions on the redesigned space were informed greatly by user surveys and discussions with various constituencies. Therefore, in addition to new paint, carpeting, window treatments, and furniture, came a whole new perspective on how users wanted to "experience" the library. None of the requests were surprising to the staff, but to have them articulated by users in the study supported the proposal. Whereas some requests were easily accommodated—making both Mac and PC machines available and providing easy access to objects both physical (print and media) and virtual (Internet resources)—others required greater consideration. For example, giving the independent user quiet study space while allowing for collaborative group study, or maintaining an open, airy atmosphere yet providing small study nooks. These were all able to be accommodated with thoughtful planning. In addition, graduate design classes were asked to examine aspects of the renovation, and their suggestions for signage and redesign of the overall space were taken into consideration in the final plan.

Old or outdated audio-visual equipment and the bulky carrels within which the equipment lived were replaced by new equipment on scattered, sleekly structured islands. Greater use of digital audio reserve listening is encouraged over traditional reserve checkout, and equipment including circulating laptops, portable CD players and digital cameras have been added to their service package. The FAL's traditional reference desk was removed from the landscape and not replaced; all queries are made now at the Circulation Desk where they are addressed or redirected according to their complexity.

Especially interesting to those of us who have lived with library construction projects is the fact that much of the FAL project took place during the school year while the library remained open. The FAL occupies the top three floors of a five-story building, and the building's five elevators were refurbished (one at a time) during the course of the renovation. The reference stacks were literally lifted and moved (fully loaded) while carpet was installed. These stacks were then moved back in a different pattern. Moreover, staff members participated in the (de)construction project by helping to disassemble the old carrels. The noisiest parts of the project took place intermittently over a two-month period.

Now that the renovation project is complete, the FAL staff and library users truly appreciate the resulting enhancements, perhaps especially because they were integrally involved with all aspects. The staff looks back on the process as a rewarding experience not merely because they now occupy a beautiful, new space, but because they gained valuable insight into reshaping the library landscape and services through close communication with their users.

Special thanks to David Hunter, music librarian and curator of the Historical Music Recordings Collection, and Laura M. Schwartz, head librarian, Fine Arts Library, University of Texas at Austin. Photos courtesy of the University of Texas.

After a one-year hiatus, the Archives Roundtable returned to life on February 25, 2006 with a session featuring presentations on a diverse array of topics.

Mary Black Junttonen described the papers of the Verdehr Trio. This distinguished chamber ensemble (made up of violinist Walter Verdehr, clarinetist Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, and pianist Silvia Roederer) is in residence at Michigan State University. For several decades they have been enhancing the repertoire for their combination of instruments by commissioning more than 180 new works. This program has brought manuscripts by Gian Carlo Menotti, Leslie Bassett, and many other composers to Michigan State, and has also led to the publication of numerous scores, recordings, and videos.

Matt Snyder and Peter Hirsch reported on the Wilson Processing Project, which is designed to reduce the archival backlog at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The Wilson Project is an extraordinarily ambitious undertaking; it employs a staff of 30, and midway through its seven-year duration it has already been responsible for processing over 50 music collections (including the papers of such luminaries as Vincent Persichetti and Norman Dello Joio), comprising a total of 1350 linear feet. A project of this scale naturally requires careful planning, an experience that has highlighted the importance of processing standards for archival collections in music. Matt consequently suggested that MLA consider developing such standards. This proposal met with great interest, and the MLA Board quickly authorized the creation of a task force (chaired by Matt and under the auspices of the Preservation Committee) to pursue this matter.

Jenn Riley and Suzanne Mudge of Indiana University (Bloomington) concluded the session with a discussion of the EVIA Digital Archive, another large and complex project that required extensive planning. EVIA stands for Ethnomusicological Video for Instruction & Analysis. It begins with nearly 150 hours of ethnomusicological videos from around the world. In order to make this raw material useful to researchers, teachers, and students, the content must be annotated and cataloged.

Because these videos arise from fieldwork, each one in a unique location, only the scholars who created them have the specialized knowledge needed to describe them properly. But they are not trained catalogers. This problem was resolved by collaboration; librarians, researchers, and technologists worked together on a system (including a custom-designed user interface) that facilitates the creation and implementation of appropriate controlled vocabularies and other annotations.

Catherine L. Adamo, Cassidy Cataloguing Services Inc.

Judith M. Andrew, Ithaca College Library

Jana Atkins, University of Central Oklahoma

Francis Norman Belk, South Carolina Governors School

Dominique Bourassa, Hamden, CT

Sarah Hess Cohen, Florida State University

James T. Deffenbaugh, College of William and Mary

Ana Dubnjakovic, University of Louisville

Ruth L. DuMont, Eastman School of Music

Anne Elizabeth Shelley, Ames, IA

Amanda L. Evans, Kent State University

Michael Fitzgerald, Apex, NC

Kimberly Marie Glinka, Hopewell Junction, NY

Maurice Joshua Gordon, Boston Public Library

Amanda Harlan, University of Kansas

Katherine V. Hasard, Union Springs, NY

Ashlie Michelle Keylon, Columbia, SC

Amy Elizabeth Koehler, Moody Bible Institute

Stefanie Mara Lesser, Queens Library

Nobue Matsuoka-Motley, American University

Heidi Johanna Radtke, University of Illinois

Maurice Saylor, Catholic University of America

Megan Elizabeth Smith-Heafy, Pittsburgh, PA

Mickey Wells, University of Tampa

Janelle Lynn West, University of North Texas

Genevieve Williams, Pacific Lutheran University

David Andrew Winjum, Dominican University

Corporate Patrons and Corporate Members are a valued segment of the MLA membership. We appreciate their support of MLA, music libraries and music librarianship.

Join us in thanking them for being a part of MLA!

The 2007 Annual Meeting of the Music Library Association will be a joint meeting with the Society for American Music. It will be held February 26-March 3 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, adjacent to Point State Park and the Three Rivers.

Among the many sessions and activities at the meeting will be presentations by the winners of this year's Best of Chapter Competition. Two papers will be given:

"Collecting Jazz CDs: How? Why? Who Bothers?"
Stephen Luttman, University of Northern Colorado
Mountain–Plains Chapter

"The iTunes Project or, We're All Pod People Now"
Christia Thomason and Leslie Kamtman, NC School of the Arts
Southeast Chapter

More information on the annual meeting (the programs, tours and other activities) will appear in the November–December issue of the newsletter. It will also be available on the MLA Web site. See you there!!

Deadline: 31 October 2006

The Education Committee of MLA is calling for applications for Poster Session presentations at the MLA annual meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, February 26 to March 3, 2007.

Presentations will be considered that fit one of these broad categories:

• Recently completed research
• New and innovative library or music library projects
• Imaginative, systematic efforts at resolving library or music library problems

Parameters for Presentation:
Poster sessions will fit on a 4'x 6' poster board and convey the subject using a combination of graphics, narrative text, and handouts. Applications requiring a network connection are not encouraged as data ports are not always conveniently located. Printed copies of the abstract must be made available by the presenter for those viewing the session. A table for handouts, business cards, and sign-up sheets will be provided. The presenter(s) must be in attendance throughout the designated time to answer questions and elaborate on the presentation topic.

Guidelines for Submission:
Entries by an individual or group of librarians must be submitted on an official entry form via e-mail, U.S. Postal Service or fax. Submissions will be evaluated by the MLA Education Committee, sponsor of the event. Criteria for selection will include quality, innovation, and suitability to the Poster Session format.

There are only twelve slots available, so those interested are encouraged to be original, thorough, and early in their applications. Authors of the selected Poster Sessions will receive detailed guidelines concerning effective preparation and presentation.

Direct questions to the coordinator at the addresses listed on the application at the end of the newsletter.

Thank you and good luck!

Bibliographic Control of Music, 1897-2000 by Richard P. Smiraglia, compiled and edited with J. Bradford Young. MLA Index and Bibliography Series, No. 32.
ISBN: 0-8108-5133-4.

This volume reviews the literature pertaining to the bibliographic control of music in libraries, including works on organization, classification, description, and catalog access. Through a bibliography of about 1,000 periodical and monograph citations, sources describing the origins and development of modern practice are outlined.

This new addition to the literature is available from Scarecrow Press, Inc.

Karen Beasley, Archivist, Dallas Symphony Orchestra Collection, Dallas Public Library

Heather Brown, Associate Editor, RILM

Laura Brown, Music Cataloger, Old Dominion University

Chris Durman, Music Librarian for Public Services, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Elizabeth Flood, Music and Media Cataloger, Harvard University

Mark Froelich, Collection Development Librarian, Florida State University

Catherine Gick, Music Catalog/Metadata Librarian, Brown University

James Heintze, retired August 31 after 37 years at American University

Nathalie Hristov, Music Librarian for Technical Services, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Rebecca Hunt, Outreach Librarian, Berklee College of Music

James Mason, Subject Librarian-Music, The Banff Centre

Erin Mayhood, Head, Music Library, University of Virginia

Mac Nelson, Cello Music Cataloger, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Heidi Radtke, Music Librarian, University of Miami

Evan Rapport, Associate Editor, RILM

Nancy Sack, Cataloger at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Library, has been appointed as MOUG's new Web Keeper

Holling Smith-Borne, Director of the Anne Potter Wilson Music Library, Vanderbilt

John Vallier, Head of Multimedia Services, University of Washington

MPMLA members gathered in Denver, Colorado, May 18-20, 2006, welcomed by local arrangements chair Suzanne Moulton–Gertig. Early arrivals enjoyed a Thursday evening supper at the Kokoro Restaurant.

The Friday morning session at Denver University's new Lamont School of Music building began with an overview by Carolyn Dow (Polley Library, Lincoln, Nebraska) of her library's Web page, "The Music of Old Nebraska." For more information and to hear Carolyn sing some of these golden oldies, see: http://polleymusic.lincolnlibraries.org/Music_of_Old_Nebraska_home.htm. Tracy Melhuish (University of Denver) continued with "Virgil Thomson: An American Music Critic," an historical summary of this multi-faceted composer and his tenure as critic of the New York Herald Tribune, with selected audio interviews. Janet Bradford (Brigham Young University) ended this session with "Introducing BYU's Newest Manuscripts: The Talleyrand Collection of Operatic Works by Giovanni Paisiello." The collection, consisting of 68 bound volumes of copyists' manuscripts, represents 52 of Paisiello's 90 operas. Six of the operas are believed to be unique surviving copies.

A long lunch break provided opportunities to explore the impressive new building, the Denver University campus, and to look for bargains at a nearby book sale.

The Friday afternoon session began with Sarah Kleinsteiber's (University of Denver) presentation, "Antonio the Alcoholic? Musical Depictions of Intoxication in Mozart's Operas." She highlighted the harmonic progressions and melodic contours Mozart typically used to portray drunk characters noting that these are not present in scenes involving Antonio, the gardener, in Le nozze di Figaro. Suzanne Moulton–Gertig (University of Denver) enlightened and entertained the group with "Missing Music, Questionable Politics, and Guilt by Association: Reznicek as 'Eulenspiegel'."

Stephen Luttmann (University of Northern Colorado) concluded the session with "Collecting Jazz CDs: How? Why? Who Bothers?" After surveying the holdings of several dozen academic library music collections, he determined that the size of an institution's jazz program correlates more closely with the size of the library's jazz CD collection than the presence of graduate-level jazz programs; Luttmann discovered, however, that relatively few libraries in any group do well in building core collections or maintaining currency. [Editor's note: this "Best of Chapter" paper will be presented at the national MLA meeting in 2007.]

Conference attendees enjoyed a pizza party in the Penrose Music Library that evening and played a musical baseball game which tested their knowledge of obscure library trivia and memories of the presentations earlier in the day. With the help of a certain bakery confection, Bradford's birthday was celebrated by all.

Cheryl Taranto (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) opened Saturday morning's session with "Opera and the Pops: Core Repertory of 'Popular' Music 1820-1860." Myrna Layton (Brigham Young University) gave the final paper, "Your Bollywood Collection," introducing Bollywood film musicals to the novice. Following some background information, she discussed the importance of music to Bollywood films and film music to Indian culture, and gave suggestions on how to build a core collection.

Lunch and the business meeting followed.

For those of us with too many years on our shoulders and lots of memories of MLA national conferences of more than forty years ago, the entire two day affair was much like a national conference was in the early 1960s. The number of people present allowed a good camaraderie and the feeling that one got to talk to everyone (or close to everyone) there. The single-track programming eliminated that stressful angst of deciding, "Do I go to this workshop, that committee meeting or the other presentation?" In short, it was quite a time.

The conference was launched on Friday morning (April 28) at the San Francisco Public Library with an hour of registration, coffee and various pastries. The first presentation was by Penelope Houston, a SFPL staff member, free-lance musician and lead singer of the 1970's punk band, The Avengers. Ms. Houston shared with the conference the various methods she has used over the past decades to promote her recordings—both as a solo artist and as a member of a garage band. She provided us with an insight into what musicians do when they are not afforded a major recording contract. She also shared with us the rights and income streams that all but the top tier of megastars gives up when signing with a major record label. Her Web site is http://www.penelope.net.

Lindsay Hansen of UCLA spoke about her work cataloguing the archives of the Wende Museum in Los Angeles. The museum is, to quote its Web site, "a museum and archive of the cold war." Lindsay discussed with us some of the pop music artists—particularly from the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany). The museum's holdings are vast and Lindsay provided us with insight into the state-imposed strictures and restrictions placed on what should otherwise be free spirits. The Web site of the museum is http://www.wendemuseum.org.

We then walked several blocks to the San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum for an orientation and tour. This resource of Bay Area music, theater and dance houses, among other material, the archives of the San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Symphony. We were presented with a wonderful picture of how much can be done with a bare bones staff and a lot of volunteer help.

In the afternoon, we returned to the SFPL for two more presentations. Nan Bostick gave an excellent PowerPoint presentation on Charles N. Daniels. Daniels was a songwriter/publisher who, early in his career, moved to San Francisco. He had great success from the late 1890's to the mid 1930's and, although one doesn't think of San Francisco as a western Tin Pan Alley, many of his compositions and publications are well known to those who either remember or research the music of the first half of the last century.

The final formal presentation of the first day was by Richie Unterberger, a Bay Area author of several books on rock music. He spoke of "undocumented" audio and video of many performers from the 1960's, ranging from total unknowns to the likes of Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd and the Beatles. His presentation relied on a number of deliciously undocumented clips—both audio and video.

After these presentations, Jason Gibbs (our host for the conference) led those interested on a tour of the now ten-year-old main building of the San Francisco Public Library. For those public librarians among us, it was refreshing to find all that we would expect a large urban public library music department to have and a lot more. The SFPL's song book collection and song index are to be envied by all music libraries of any size and of any character—public, academic, or national.

One cannot end reporting on this first day of the conference without mentioning the wonderful wine and cheese reception at Ray Heigemeir's home in San Francisco. Many members brought wine, cheese and minibrew beer for our taste delight. Ray has a wonderful home and was a most gracious host. We could finally understand why Ray continues to live in San Francisco while enduring an hour and a half commute (each way) to his job at Stanford. The oft-maligned San Francisco weather cooperated and it was a glorious afternoon.

The three chapters then reunited for a presentation by Cathy Gerhard from the University of Washington. She demonstrated her online bibliography of music for double wind quintet. Like so many bibliographies of music, the present one had its genesis as a search for music to be played by Cathy's group. Her search for material was made difficult by LC's not going beyond nine players in its chamber music breakdown. Cathy shared with us the lengths to which she has gone to track down some 305 works for this uncommon but by no means unusual combination of players. The Web site for Cathy's bibliography is http://faculty.washington.edu/gerhart/dwqbibliography/.

After lunch, John Roberts took all of us on an extensive tour on the almost brand new Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library at Berkeley. Everyone, but everyone, was in awe and most librarians were envious of John's spacious and well-windowed office. A private display of some of the library's treasures was set out for us in the graduate seminar room. This ranged from a thirteenth century liturgical manuscript to some contemporary Handel libretti and a Beethoven sketch to an original singer's part book for the premiere of Tristan und Isolde. At the upper end of the chronological spectrum were the autograph score of Stravinsky's ballet, Orpheus and Earl (Fatha) Hines' personal and extensive collection of cuff-links.

We then settled down for the final presentation: Tom Bickley (California State University, East Bay) speaking of Cornelius Cardew, Pauline Oliveros, experimental music in general and his own group, the Cornelius Cardew Choir. Eight members of the choir were there—resplendent in their white [experimental] lab coats—to perform an Oliveros work for us. The Web site for the choir is http://www.metatronpress.com/artists/cardewchoir/.

It was the consensus of all present and an official pronouncement from the Pacific Northwest Chapter that, while it would be impossible to have such a conference every year, it is feasible to plan one for four years hence. The Pacific Northwest contingent even made noises about being the host chapter. The author of this report is newly ensconced on the west coast and already looking forward to attending the next West Coast Conference in 2010—right after the national MLA meeting in San Diego.

Articles and Chapters
Burbank, Richard D. (University of Illinois at Urbana)
"Musical Fusion in the Works of Olaf Stapledon: A Matrix of Storms and Stars." Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 16:4 (Winter 2006): 350-368.

Moore, Tom (University of Rio de Janeiro)
"Brazilian Music: A Core Collection for the Music Library." Music Reference Services Quarterly 9:1 (2004): 37-66.

Procházka, David (The University of Akron)
"The Development of Uniform Titles for Choreographic Works." Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 42:1 (2006): 7-20.