A Joint Meeting in Pittsburgh
| MLA Newsletter No. 148 March–April, 2007 |
| Music Library Association |
|
A Joint Meeting in Pittsburgh
| |||||
|
In this issue: |
| President's Report Philip Vandermeer, MLA President |
As I returned from Pittsburgh after our annual MLA meeting, I thought about how very lucky I am to be associated with such a talented, energetic, lively, and fun-loving group of people. MLA energizes me in a way that no other professional organization ever has, and I always return home ready to tackle the challenges of another year. Our 76th annual conference was no exception and adding the Society for American Music to the mix was an especially welcome bonus.
Much of my optimism about our association was forged on Wednesday afternoon when I attended the New Members Forum, so ably led by Renée McBride and Abby Al-Doory Cross. We were visited by a number of MLA luminaries who movingly shared what MLA meant to them, encouraging the new members to begin to develop the long-term relationships that had enriched their own professional and personal lives. If anybody needs assurance that our profession is healthy all they need do is to meet the new members of our association; our future is indeed bright. Pittsburgh was a wonderful, welcoming city, full of surprises (did anybody see the sign at the airport and the articles in the local newspaper?). Jim Cassaro led a splendid Local Arrangements Committee and they deserve our thanks and gratitude for a memorable meeting. From concerts to receptions to tours to other amenities, the LAC can be proud of its work and the city of Pittsburgh. Among those greeting MLA and SAM members at the opening plenary session Thursday morning were Dr. Rush Miller, Dean of Libraries at the University of Pittsburgh; Dr. Deane Root, Chair of the Department of Music and Director of the Center for American Music, also at the University of Pittsburgh; Dr. Barbara Mistick, Director of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh; and Erika Linke, Associate Dean of Libraries at Carnegie-Mellon University. As each person spoke, I was impressed by how much they obviously loved the city. I know this attitude was to be shared by many of our members as the week progressed. At the heart of our annual conferences are the programs and this year's was an embarrassment of riches. Congratulations and thanks go to Mark McKnight and his Program Committee for working closely with SAM's Program Committee (chaired by our own George Boziwick) to create an interesting, stimulating, and beautifully integrated program. Plenaries on John Cage and musical canons, the series American Music in American Libraries, hot topics sessions, and a plethora of papers on a huge variety of topics made this a conference of difficult choices. All the while the work of MLA went on in its committee and subcommittee meetings, roundtables, chapter meetings, and informal conversations at dinner and in the bar. The MLA Board of Directors met throughout the conference, discussing and acting upon many aspects of the association's business. Our annual meeting is always a bittersweet time because we must say goodbye to Board Members who have become our indispensable colleagues and friends: Fiscal Officer Linda Blair, Reports Gatherer Amanda Maple, and Parliamentarian Paul Cauthen rotated off the Board. At the same time we welcomed MLA's new Members-at-Large elected by the membership in 2006: Assistant Fiscal Officer Eunice Schroeder, Assistant Reports Gatherer George Boziwick, and Assistant Parliamentarian Holling Smith-Borne. In addition to the new members of the Board, other editors and officers were appointed prior to and during this meeting. D.J. Hoek will be the new Technical Reports Editor, Susannah Cleveland will be the new Placement Officer, Paula Matthews will assume the new position of Development Officer, and Eric Harbeson will be the new Copyright Web Site Editor. The Board also approved a new position, that of Assistant Web Editor; Jon Haupt has taken on this vital work. At the Business Meeting on Saturday, Bonna Boettcher announced several other appointments, and I will be announcing more in the weeks to come. Our awards were also announced at the Business Meeting and the recipients deserve our warmest congratulations. (See "MLA News" for full details.) But I wanted to highlight one in particular this year. The Special Achievement Award, given by the MLA Board of Directors, recognizes extraordinary service to music librarianship over a short period of time, and has been awarded only eight times, most recently in 2003. Nancy Nuzzo, MLA's former Treasurer/Executive Secretary, richly deserved the 2007 Special Achievement Award for all the reasons President Boettcher outlined during the Business Meeting. Congratulations Nancy! Our major asset remains all the talented individuals who make up our association. MLA has been a vital organization for 76 years because of its membership, and mentorship has been a huge part of that. Many of us are in our current positions because of mentors who took an interest in us personally and professionally and encouraged us to go beyond our comfort levels to achieve things we might otherwise have thought inconceivable. Since our 75th anniversary in Memphis last year, I have been thinking of ways in which we can build on our celebration of MLA. The wonderful series in Notes on the history of our association and the people who built it have inspired me to suggest that we continue to celebrate those who have been instrumental in our professional lives. I hope you will allow me to conclude with two personal reflections and an invitation. Many people have mentored me in the profession of Music Librarianship, but I would like to focus on two: Pauline Bayne, Head of the Music Library at the University of Tennessee and Neil Ratliff, Head of the Music Library at the University of Maryland. When I arrived at the University of Tennessee in 1975 as an undergraduate music major I didn't even know there was such a thing as a music library. I had just received a copy of the opera Carmen and I wanted to find a score. I went to the undergraduate library and was told that this particular item was probably in the Music Library (no such thing as an online catalog in those days). I walked over to the UT Music Building, found the Music Library, and my life was transformed; I had discovered my home. Over the next nine months I was in the library almost every day, finding new wonders, and discovering that there was such a thing as a Music Librarian. By the time the next summer rolled around, and there was an opening for a new student assistant, Pauline had seen me so much that she probably thought I already worked there. At any rate, she wasn't sick of me yet since she hired me, and for that she has my everlasting gratitude. Pauline taught me what a music librarian did. I learned how to do reference, how to help people find what they really needed, what careful editing entailed, how to read a catalog card, how to be in charge of an operation when nobody else was around, in other words, what it meant to be a professional. When I graduated and decided to go to library school, Pauline continued to be a wonderful mentor. The best class I had in library school (and the most challenging) was the Seminar in Music Librarianship Pauline offered in summer of 1979. Pauline Bayne is the reason I am proud to call myself a Music Librarian. In January of 1988 I met Neil Ratliff, Head of the Music Library at the University of Maryland. I was interviewing for a temporary job as a Music Librarian, thinking that I would be attending the University of Michigan the next fall to pursue a Ph.D. I got the job and stayed at Maryland for the next thirteen years. Neil showed me another dimension of what it meant to be a Music Librarian. An expert bibliographer and selector, and one of the most entrepreneurial individuals I have ever met, Neil mentored me to another level. His vast knowledge and sharp wit modeled for me a career that I wanted to emulate. He was passionate about professional organizations and provided me the support to get involved in MLA. He provided continual encouragement until the day he died, and it is because of him that I have the motivation to serve the profession that I value so much. We all have mentors in our lives, and I want to encourage each of you to think about the individuals that have been vital to your own professional development. It is through them we can learn how to be mentors to others and in this way keep our profession healthy. The MLA Newsletter will print remembrances of our mentors, living or dead, in upcoming issues, and I hope many of you will take advantage of the opportunity to share your stories. It is an honor for me to serve MLA as its President and I encourage you to contact me with your concerns and comments.
|
|
Is there someone in MLA who has had a profound influence on your career? Your development as a librarian? Someone who has been a mentor to you? We want to celebrate those individuals.
Send us stories of your mentors! Whether a single influential experience or a lifelong mentoring relationship, let's share our appreciation of those individuals and the varied ways they have helped us. Your submissions need not be long or formal—a few sentences will sometimes suffice. We will print them in upcoming issues of the MLA Newsletter.
Questions? Contact the newsletter editor, Steve Mantz (stmantz@davidson.edu).
|
| Annual Meeting |
|
Plenary I: John Cage: Rediscovered Pieces
John Redford, Biola University
It would be difficult to imagine a more appropriate, illuminating and entertaining program for the first plenary session of the joint conference of the Music Library Association and the Society for American Music than "John Cage's Chess Pieces and Dance to the West: A Rediscovery." This was the first of seven sessions on "American Music in American Libraries" spread throughout the conference. In addition to enlightening us on the rediscovery of works by the seminal figure of American avant-garde music, the presentation offered a consummate example of successful collaborations between library, scholar, publisher and performer.
The distinguished panel included pianist and preeminent Cage interpreter Margaret Leng Tan; musicologist David Patterson, a contributor to the Cambridge Companion to John Cage; and Don Gillespie of C.F. Peters (retired). Laura Kuhn of the John Cage Trust was unable to be present due to illness. David Nicholls, University of Southampton, chaired the session.
It is astonishing to learn that there are still unexamined and unpublished works by Cage, yet Don mentioned that at Peters there is a "John Cage box" containing manuscripts set aside by the composer. Don described the rediscovery and publication of Dance Music for Elfrid Ide, a 15-minute percussion work that Cage wrote in 1940 at Mills College. The work is experimental in its inclusion of toy instruments, which looks forward to the later Toy Piano Suite. The names of student performers are included in the manuscript. Cage did not write it for his own ensemble which perhaps explains why he put it aside.
David Patterson then gave a presentation on the research process that led to the rediscovery of Dance to the West. This two-page piano work was written for the choreographer Ruth Hatfield in 1941. David mentioned the richness of source material at the John Cage Trust, although the state of information on Cage's choreographers is uneven. He was eventually able to contact Hatfield's daughters who were in possession of their late mother's papers. They told him they had the manuscript score and asked if he'd like a photocopy. David described the moment as an "electraglide of victory." The manuscript indicates dance movements notated in pencil suggesting that it was written after the choreography, and it also contains a curious drum part. David also procured Cage's copy of the Modern Dance Concert program (1942) that includes Dance of the West. The program is annotated, "add percussion to it." The type of drum is a topic of permanent speculation. Margaret Leng Tan then gave what was probably the composition's first performance in sixty years.
Switching to the role of scholar/presenter, Ms. Tan related the fascinating history of Chess Pieces, a work unique to Cage's oeuvre and indeed to twentieth century music and art.
Chess Pieces was created in 1944 specifically for the Imagery of Chess exhibition in New York. The exhibition also included works by Marcel Duchamp, Isamu Noguchi, Man Ray and other leading surrealists. Afterwards Chess Pieces was purchased by a private collector. Deemed lost and largely overlooked by Cage scholars, the painting was publicly displayed in New York for the first time in sixty years at the Noguchi Museum's The Imagery of Chess Revisited exhibition.
Chess Pieces represents a confluence of Cage's three primary life-long interests: music, visual arts, and chess. Embedded in the 64 squares is a finely wrought score. Cage has managed to surprise us again with this visual pun: Chess Pieces is a piece of art that can be both played on and played. A clip from the Mode DVD, The Complete John Cage Edition, Volume 34: The Piano Works 7, revealed Larry List (guest curator of the Noguchi Museum who had tracked down Chess Pieces, in 2003) describing how he approached Ms. Tan to determine if the notation in the painting indeed amounted to a complete and potentially playable composition.
Ms. Tan continued, explaining that with the composition having been hidden in plain sight for over half a century, the question, "What does it sound like?" was irresistible. It took six weeks to decipher and transcribe the score, cross-referencing it against an exceedingly rough 1943 draft manuscript in the New York Public Library. Mode Records and Ms. Tan then recorded it for the Noguchi Museum's chess show so that for the very first time, the public could experience Chess Pieces as art and music simultaneously. The music is through-composed and consists of 22 systems, each of which is a self-contained musical unit of 12 bars. Remarkably, Chess Pieces succeeds as a cohesive, coherent composition. The music is abstract and dispassionate in contrast to Cage's Four Walls, also from 1944. No instrumentation, tempo indications or dynamics are given. Chess Pieces is probably Cage's only extant artwork from this period and differs from his later works where chance operations were involved.
We were then treated to a performance of the work with a projected display of the chessboard squares appearing as the music was played. The session was a splendid opening to the 2007 conference.
|
|
http://www.pitt.edu/~mla2007/handouts.htm |
The two Program Chairs for the 2007 meeting: Mark McKnight (for MLA) and George Boziwick (for SAM)
| |||
| Annual Meeting | |||
|
Music and Technology I How'd They Do That? Innovative Technological Solutions
Lindsay Hansen, California State University, Northridge
This fast-paced, Gong Show-inspired panel of presentations featured exciting developments in music and technology. Hosted by Gerry Szymanski of the Eastman School, who kept the audience of about 100 people entertained with Eugene Ormandy (famed Philadelphia Orchestra conductor) quips between presenters, the session was both informative and fun. Each presenter had a scant five minutes to talk and those who went over the allotted time were punished with the gong.
Mark Puente (University of Tennessee) and Misti Shaw (St. Olaf College) presented first with "A virtual introduction to a real-time resource: the UNT WebCT tutorial." While at the University of North Texas, Mark had created (along with Misti and Cynthia Beard as editors) a WebCT tutorial to reach the some 1,700 music majors at the university. The tutorial was created in Captivate and was tied to MUMH 1600, a course that is part of the core curriculum and is part of the Music Library orientation. A few advantages of the tutorial were 24/7 accessibility both on-campus and off, student access could be monitored and there was an e-mail and discussion board. The tutorial featured the following modules: Welcome, UNT Basics, Virtual Tour, Basic Search (Catalog) and Keyword Search. Mark and Misti have since left UNT, but they are hoping to implement similar tutorials at their respective institutions.
Next, Jon Haupt (Iowa State University) spoke of "Wikis and MLA: Exploring the Possibilities." Due to popular demand, he has investigated potential wikis for MLA and demonstrated various mock-ups. He has considered various names for the wiki, such as "Bibliomusica Wiki" and the project is being sponsored by the Information Sharing Subcommittee of the Public Services Committee. Some ideas for the wiki are: a custom Google search engine, group collaboration/workspace, digital audio and conference material. He is seeking feedback for what to include, what to call it, and the project is still in the development and brainstorming phase.
Thomas Pease (Library of Congress) presented "Cataloging on the Edge: Researching and Describing Unpublished Audio Collections." Hired as a project cataloger, Thomas has been working on cataloging unpublished audio and broadcast materials, which is a great challenge. Most of the materials have limited and poor identifying documentation. Thomas spoke of three research methods he has used: audition, direct evidence, and indirect evidence. He mentioned the value of using Proquest Historical Newspapers to identify concerts and performances in recordings and cited his proudest discovery during the project: a recording of John Coltrane and Thelonius Monk at Carnegie Hall, which has since been released on Rounder Records. Thomas stressed the need for a human to work with digital collections!
Christia Thomason (North Carolina School of the Arts) provided a preview of her Best in Chapter presentation, "How to become a Pod Person for under $100.00". Defining a Pod Person as someone who podcasts, uses iTunes as a database and/or uses iPods, Christia outlined how anyone could provide streaming media for less than $100. The requirements are basic computer hardware, word processing software, a server, staff, and perhaps most importantly, time. Many of the components are free: iTunes (to rip CDs), Handbrake to rip videos and transfer DVDs, and freeware such as Taco Edit to create pages for streaming. The $100 covers a macro to speed data entry (such as QuickKeys, available for $59.95) and QuickTime Pro (available for $29.95) to prepare files for streaming. All of these steps and materials result in a page of streaming audio that cannot be downloaded. The files can be made available in WebCT or Blackboard for student and faculty use. A wiki about the project is available: http://mla2007podpeople.pbwiki.com/.
Timothy Sestrick (Gettysburg College) presented "Playing off the Page: Enhanced Podcasts and Library Outreach." Timothy first shared that "podcast" had been the Oxford English Dictionary word of the year in 2005. He then spoke of enhanced/multimedia podcasts, which use video and audio, and are potential tools for information literacy instruction and outreach. Timothy shared a sample podcast from Gettysburg that tied into a recent exhibit about Lillian Blauvelt. The podcast featured images and music along with narration. Although it is not technically a podcast because it's not available through RSS feed, it's a start. The podcast is currently on the exhibit homepage (http://www.gettysburg.edu/library/music/blauvelt/Lillian.html).
Finally, Sha Towers (Baylor University) spoke of "A Tale of Two Technologies: Organizing Stuff and People." He mentioned the first of two challenges at Baylor: chaotic shelves in the music library. Student workers had traditionally spent at least twenty hours (total) on shelf-reading, a thankless and tedious task. Now students use a PDA, which is loaded with a list of materials with boxes to check off. Sha and his colleagues run a report in the catalog and export to the PDA. This project has helped to better identify missing materials. What's more, the students are happier!
The second challenge was scheduling students to work in circulation. Baylor has started using ScheduleSource, which features a bulletin board and allows students to easily trade shifts and track their hours.
After the quick presentations, Nancy Zavac (University of Miami) opened the floor for questions and discussion, officially called "Continuing Education Forum: Cutting-Edge Uses of Technology in Music Libraries." Many participants had questions about ScheduleSource and the PDAs for shelf reading, as well as policies for circulating iPods and handling streaming reserves.
Music and Technology I was presented by the Education Committee and the Information Sharing Subcommittee.
Top | |||
| Annual Meeting | |||
|
Music in Pittsburgh
Stephanie Bonjack, Co-chair, Social Responsibilities Roundtable
The American Music, Jazz and Popular Music, and Social Responsibilities roundtables hosted a combined session on music in Pittsburgh at the annual MLA meeting. After a round of introductions by session chair Tammy Ravas, our first presenter, Bill Adams, talked about the gay choral scene in Pittsburgh. During his tenure as artistic director of the Renaissance City Men's Choir, Adams has worked to continue the community involvement and high quality performances that have been the choir's hallmark since it's creation in 1985. At that time, the choir was brought into being as a response to the AIDS crisis. Men who lacked a safe haven in which to freely express their orientation found community, as well as an emotional outlet, in song. Over twenty years later, the choir still thrives, benefiting from its membership in the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses (GALA), an organization hosting international choral conferences. Recently, the Renaissance City Men's Choir commissioned a number of new works, notably a piece by composer James Mulholland to commemorate the choir's twentieth anniversary season.
Our next speaker, Paco Mahone, spoke about the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild. The guild was founded in 1968 by Bill Strickland, a man whose life was dramatically changed by a high school pottery teacher with a love of jazz. Strickland's pursuit of the craft led to improved self-confidence and greater success at school. He attended the University of Pittsburgh, and founded the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild after graduation to help combat the economic and social inequities experienced by African-Americans on Pittsburgh's North Side. Initially, the guild operated out of a small row house, offering a rudimentary art program for inner-city minority children. Today, disciplines from ceramics to digital arts are taught in the guild's 62,000 square foot vocational training and arts center. This facility also houses a 350-seat concert hall where jazz legends like Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Williams, and Billy Taylor have performed and recorded on the MCG Jazz label. Proceeds from concerts and sales of recordings support the guild's programs, all of which are free for children. Strickland's model for urban arts education has proven so successful that similar initiatives are in the works in other cities around the country.
To round out the session, our final speaker was Michael Kastelic, lead singer of the punk band The Cynics, as well as a founding partner of Get Hip Recordings. Kastelic led the audience on a first-person whirlwind tour of the rise of punk in Pittsburgh in the 1970's. He came into the scene as a teenager hooked on magazines like Rock Scene and Cream, looking for an alternative to FM radio which, he frankly stated, "sucked." He began attending house parties where he heard a plethora of local bands and participated in all kinds of avant-garde activities during the inevitable arrival of the police. By a strange twist of fate, the Ramones played four shows at a local pizza parlor, all of which Kastelic attended; at the end of the last show, he and the band shared a pizza. A rock star was born. Eventually, local venues began picking up bands, like the Cynics, that were playing house parties, and some of them went on to enjoy further success. Kastelic attributes the decline of the organic, family-like punk scene to this shift in patronage, but the more radio-friendly new wave was also at its heels. In 1985, Get Hip Recordings was founded by Kastelic and his bandmates to release Cynics albums, and is now a record label and distributor of over 20,000 independent titles. The Cynics continue to tour internationally.
| |||
| Annual Meeting | |||
|
Taking a Look at RDA
Kathy Glennan, University of Maryland
Report on the session, "Resource Description and Access (RDA): A New Cataloging Standard for a Digital Future," sponsored by the Bibliographic Control Committee
Jennifer Bowen, Head of Cataloging at the University of Rochester and Head of Technical Services at the Sibley Music Library, and John Attig, Authority Control Librarian at the Pennsylvania State University, provided a detailed look at RDA: Resource Description and Access, the cataloging standard under development to replace AACR2. Jennifer currently serves as the ALA representative to the Joint Steering Committee for the Revision of AACR (JSC), and John will succeed her in that role beginning in April.
Their joint PowerPoint presentation focused on the reasons for developing a new standard, its goals, content and development issues, the impact of RDA on music, and how the library community should prepare for RDA.
RDA development offers a chance to simplify the rules, establishing the new code as a content standard for resource description for various metadata schema and encouraging its use worldwide. It will provide more consistency in the application of rules across various types of content and media, demonstrating the commonalities between different types of resources. It will address problems inherent in AACR2, such as the limitations of the general material designation and the difficulties in describing digital materials. RDA will also contain principle-based rules that rely on cataloger's judgment and will encourage the application of the FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) and FRAD (Functional Requirements for Authority Data) models.
With the ever-changing cataloging environment, RDA must function with new metadata standards as well as with the current ISBD and MARC21 contexts. With this in mind, RDA will serve only as a content standard, leaving display and communication issues to other standards.
RDA contains the following sections: General introduction; Part A: Description; Part B: Access point control; Appendices; Glossary; and Index. The JSC constituencies have the opportunity to review the evolving drafts of these upcoming sections: the revised chapter on carrier (available March 2007), a revised draft of the chapters addressing relationships (due in July), and a draft of Part B (scheduled for release in December). The JSC makes these documents publicly available, and MLA members should send their comments on the draft rules to Mark Scharff, the MLA liaison to the ALA Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access. The JSC expects publication of the complete RDA in early 2009.
The ongoing development of RDA makes it difficult to predict the full impact on music cataloging. For example, the rules for determining primary access for performances remain under discussion, and the role of uniform titles (now called "preferred titles") will change to serve specifically as work or expression identifiers.
The JSC has endorsed the goal that records created using RDA will be able to coexist in a catalog with records created under AACR2, so the need to make significant changes to legacy records should not occur.
The Bibliographic Control Committee has provided a link to Jennifer and John's full presentation from its Web site. For additional information on RDA, visit the JSC Web site.
| |||
| Annual Meeting | |||
|
DCRM(M): An Introduction to the Guidelines
Nancy Lorimer, Stanford University
Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials is envisioned as a set of manuals that provide guidelines for the cataloging of rare and early materials in various formats, including books, serials, ancient and medieval manuscripts, maps, and, of course, music. While the overall project is being overseen by the Bibliographic Control Committee of RBMS, the music manual is being written by an MLA/RBMS joint committee headed by Jain Fletcher of UCLA. This MLA session presented an introduction to the background, principles and scope of the document and discussed issues that have arisen in attempting to combine music and rare materials cataloging rules. We had a fine turnout of approximately 65 attendees, many of whom offered valuable hints and solutions for the committee.
Jain started off the session, summarizing the goals of DCRM(M) and setting its parameters. DCRM(M), she told the audience, is intended to cover the full range of printed music, from the point of inception for music printing (1501) through the approximate end of the engraving process (ca. 1900), and to the present if desired. It also includes rules for the description of manuscript music, except for medieval manuscripts and liturgical books.
Committee members then went to discuss with the audience various issues that had arisen in writing the manual. The thorniest of these is title transcription, an area in which music and rare book rules conflict. Music rules transpose title elements so they grammatically make sense; rare book rules emphasize exact transcription. Panel and audience members could see both advantages and disadvantages in adopting either practice, as well as the drawbacks of delegating one form of the title to a note. In a compromise that the audience strongly supported, it was agreed that the title would be transcribed both ways, and that the cataloger could choose which would be the title proper and which would be an added title entry. We hope this will also appeal to the rare books community.
Other questions included whether to add more contents options for music manuscripts (e.g. scope and summary notes) and to make them more detailed; how to deal with list title pages and title pages that cover the entire work when the item is only one small part of that work (Lois Schultz offered her experiences from writing the sheet music guidelines here); the extent of fictitious imprints in rare music (David Hunter gave much needed help here); and how to describe oblong formats in the bibliographic record (thanks to Morris Levy for his experiences).
All in all, it was a lively and informative session, with good discussion. The committee received some wonderful input and was gratified at the interest in their project.
| |||
| Annual Meeting | |||
|
Deacidification Tour
Alice Carli, Eastman School of Music
On arrival at the plant, the tour group was first introduced to the newest area, still under construction, which will be dedicated to preserving audio and video information stored on magnetic tape. At the moment that area served to make us welcome as we ate boxed lunches from a (very good!) local catering service and were introduced to most of the PTLP executive staff, including James Burd, President and CEO; Robert Gaydos, Vice President Quality Control; Barbara Schreibeis, Vice President of Finance and CFO; Robert Strauss, familiar to many of us as Vice President of Marketing and Head of Sales; and Alix Bentrud, Preservation Program Specialist, who just started in her job last week. We also had the opportunity to meet Patrick Shevlin, director of the new video/audio department soon to take shape in our pro tem dining room.
Because of the size of the group (although not all of the 107 people who signed up actually appeared, there were still over 60 of us) and the tight time schedule, four of the staff people whom we met at lunch conducted separate tours with about 15 participants each—simultaneously. The space is large and the production route has many stopping points, so the tour guides were able to perform the feat, something like a large conga dance circuit, with an impressive lack of jostling or confusion. Of course, only one of the small groups was lucky enough to begin at the beginning! For those who wish they could have been there—or are having trouble remembering all the events in order—there is a photo album synopsis of the tour from beginning to end at http://www.flickr.com , tagged as "MLA deacidification tour 2007." For those who would like more information about Preservation Technologies, their web site is http://www.ptlp.com .
Some of the highlights of the tour for me, as a long time client of Preservation Technologies, included meeting in person Kathy Link, the imperturbable shipping coordinator with whom I have corresponded for years; seeing the specialized holders for our unbound material as well as the delightfully low-tech and gentle restraints—rubber bands—on the bound volume caddies; learning that the odd whine in the background was an ultrasonic hammer breaking up clumps of MgO, the deacidification material; and seeing the entire deacidification process in situ. PTLP clearly takes meticulous care of their clients' materials and of the processes they use to preserve them. They also take care to understand thoroughly what they propose to do and how to do it. Their prosperity is based on their success in doing well what clients need to have done, including giving a really fun and informative tour to a lot of music librarians.
| |||
| MLA News | |||
|
Call for Proposals: Newport, RI 2008
The Music Library Association 2008 Program Committee announces its call for proposals for the 2008 annual meeting to be held in Newport, Rhode Island, February 17–24, 2008. The committee welcomes proposals for individual presentations or entire program sessions on topics in music librarianship, musicology, discography, and other related areas.
Proposals should be submitted via Web form.
All program proposals must be submitted by April 30, 2007 to be considered for the 2008 conference.
Please direct any questions to the 2008 Program Committee, whose voting members are:
Business/Non-Program Proposals
Requests for rooms to hold business and other non-program meetings during MLA's 2008 annual meeting can be submitted through a Web form available for that purpose.
| |||
| MLA News | |||
|
Nuzzo Receives Special Achievement Award
The Music Library Association presents its Special Achievement Award to an individual who has provided extraordinary service to the profession of music librarianship over a relatively short period of time. Instituted in 1992, it has been awarded previously to only seven individuals.
At its 2007 annual meeting, the Music Library Association presented the award to Nancy Bren Nuzzo. Her achievements were summarized at the presentation ceremony:
Nancy Nuzzo has:
| |||
| |||
| MLA News | |||
|
Three Members Join MLA Board
Ken Calkins, MLA Publicity Officer
George Boziwick is Chief of the Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. He has an M.A. in Music Composition from Hunter College and an M.L.S. from Columbia University. In his twenty years at NYPL he assisted in bringing major collections to the library, including those of Jerry Bock, Fred Ebb, Leon Kirchner, Meredith Monk, as well as the American Music Center score collection. He is Coordinator of the MLA/MPA/MOLA Joint Committee and is also active in the Society for American Music. He has contributed articles to Notes, American Music, the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, and the Routledge Encyclopedia of the Blues. His compositions include works recorded on the Opus One label, and his Magnificat has been published by C.F. Peters. He is also an active blues harmonica player.
Eunice Schroeder is a librarian at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she serves as assistant head of the Arts Library, coordinator of humanities collections, and manager for music, classical studies, and German studies collections. She has a Ph.D. in Musicology from Stanford University, M.L.S. from the University of Tennessee, and B.M. (Piano Performance) from Valparaiso University. Before coming to Santa Barbara she was Music Librarian at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. A member of MLA since 1992, her service includes: Program Committee for 2007 national meeting (2006–2007); Chair, Subcommittee on Music Library Facilities (2003–2007); Investments Subcommittee (2001–2004); and Book Reviews Editor, Notes (1998–2001). She is currently Chair of the MLA Southern California Chapter (2006–2007) and served as Chair of the Public Services Committee, Midwest Chapter (1995–1998). She has written articles and reviews in Library Administration & Management (co-authored article), Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science (2d ed.), Notes, Music Reference Services Quarterly, Journal of Musicology, and Musica Disciplina; and she was subject editor for Best Books for Academic Libraries, vol. 9, Music and Fine Arts (2003).
Holling Smith-Borne is Director of the Anne Wilson Potter Music Library at Vanderbilt University. Previously, he was Coordinator of the Music Library/Associate Professor at DePauw University, and before that Music and Fine Arts Librarian at Butler University. He has an M.I.L.S .from the University of Michigan and a B.M. (Piano Performance) from Bowling Green State University. His MLA service includes: Chair of the Education Committee (2004– ); Co-Coordinator of the Social Responsibilities Roundtable (1999–2003); member of the Electronic Reference Services Subcommittee (1997–2003); and for the Midwest Chapter, Chair of the Public Services Committee (1998–2003). He is Treasurer and a Board member of Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG) (2005– ). His publications include "Digital Media Reviews: RILM Online, A Comparison of Vendors," with Donna Arnold, Judy Clarence, and Stephen Luttmann, Notes 61, no. 1 (Sept. 2004): 197-205. He presented on "Using AOL Instant Messenger as a Reference Chat Service" at the 2003 MLA Annual Meeting.
| |||
| MLA News | |||
|
Annual Awards Presented in Pittsburgh Ken Calkins, MLA Publicity Officer  Freeman Travel Grant Recipients (l-r): Amanda Evans, Janelle West, Amy Pennington, and Kristie Nelsen
Four Awarded Freeman Travel Grants
Amanda Evans is earning an M.L.I.S. in Academic Librarianship with a focus on Music Librarianship at Kent State University. She also works in the Music Library there as a Senior Library Assistant, serving as the circulation supervisor, reference assistant, and student supervisor. She has a Bachelor of Music Education from Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.
Kristie Nelsen received an M.L.S. and a graduate academic certificate in advanced management of libraries and information agencies from the University of North Texas in December 2006. She has a B.M. in horn performance from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and an M.M. in music history and literature from the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Her interests include film music and digital resources. She currently lives in Anchorage, Alaska.
Amy Pennington is completing an M.A. in library science at the University of Missouri, Columbia, to graduate in May 2007. Her B.A. in music is from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and M.M. in viola performance from the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Currently she is a library technical assistant in cataloging at Washington University in St. Louis, where she recently completed her library science practicum at the Gaylord Music Library. Among her performance experience, she has been Principal Viola of the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra.
Janelle West is on the Music Library cataloging staff at the University of North Texas, where she is also completing an M.L.S. She holds an M.M. in flute performance from North Texas and a B.A. in music from Southern Adventist University. As a specialist in baroque flute performance practice, she performs regularly with several Dallas area early music groups.
Awards for Publications
The Richard S. Hill Award honors the best article on music librarianship or article of a music-bibliographic nature. Jeremy L. Smith received this award for his article "A Newly Discovered Edition of William Byrd's Psalmes, Sonets & Songs: Provenance and Significance" Notes 62, no. 2 (December 2005): 273-98. "Jeremy Smith uses his discovery of a hitherto unknown edition of William Byrd's Psalmes, Sonets and Songs as a springboard to examine the intersection of politics, publishing, and book collecting. Juxtaposing the fates of two copies from this edition, one worn and forgotten and the other carefully preserved by a succession of notable owners, he explores the nexus of context and content to which they likely owe both their creation and survival. Smith's masterful reconstruction of each copy's provenance, as well as his examination of the clandestine activities of certain publishers and collectors, lead to thought-provoking speculation about the relationship between religious and political strife and the popularity of this collection."
The Eva Judd O'Meara Award for the best review published in Notes goes to Ruth A. Solie for her review of George Grove, Music and Victorian Culture, ed. Michael Musgrave (New York: Palgrave, 2003), Notes 61 (2005): 732-734. "Solie's review strikes the perfect balance between providing readers with a summary overview of the contents of the book and engaging the multiple contributors as an intellectual peer. Solie finds a veritable feast of interesting material in the volume at hand—she refers to the inclusion in the end matter of Grove's note on Beethoven's Fifth Symphony as "for dessert." Her ability to synthesize information about the book and deliver it to readers in a spirited and enlightening way reflects Solie's own distinguished career and writings. This contribution should serve as a model for all who would undertake reviewing for Notes."
Publications are considered for awards during the year following their imprint date.
Awards for Research
The Dena Epstein Award for Archival and Library Research in American Music was established through a generous gift from Morton and Dena Epstein in 1995. The 2007 award goes to Sarah Dorsey and R. Allen Lott. Sarah Dorsey, Head Music Librarian at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, will develop a book proposal for a biography of the pioneering American composer, pianist, and educator Louise Talma (1906-1996). Despite Talma's many achievements, an in-depth study of her life and works still does not exist, chiefly because her own materials have not been accessible to researchers. Recently, however, Ms. Dorsey herself completed at the Library of Congress a six-month sabbatical from UNC–Greensboro; at LC she began processing an extensive collection of Talma's scores, correspondence, photographs, programs, and other materials. Since this collection is the primary source of information needed to complete her book proposal, Ms. Dorsey will use the Epstein Award funds to return to the Library of Congress and conduct research for at least one month.
R. Allen Lott, Professor and Chair of Music History at the School of Church Music at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, will conduct research for a critical edition of nineteenth-century American hymnody for the series Music in the United States (MUSA), administered by the American Musicological Society. The purpose of the publication will be "to document America's original contribution during the nineteenth century to the ongoing hymnic tradition," and it will include an extended historical essay, edited versions of one hundred representative hymns from various styles and genres, crucial commentary, and various indices. Dr. Lott's research will require manually searching numerous hymnals for hymn tunes and related information. The Epstein Award will help support his research trip to the Library of Congress.
 Walter Gerboth Award recipient Michelle Oswell with longtime MLA member Joe Boonin
The Walter Gerboth Award supports members who are in the first five years of their professional library careers, to assist research-in-progress in music or music librarianship. The 2007 recipient is Michelle Lynn Oswell, Humanities Librarian for Music and Literature at Haverford College. She is a graduate of the College of Information Science and Technology at Drexel University (M.L.S.), and is ABD in Musicology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her "English Lute Song Database Project" will create an on-line database of specific information both musical and literary for the English lute song from 1597-1622, using PHP scripts to access a MySQL database. The project will put a body of musical works never before brought under such control into a database searchable by a number of parameters. It will initially cover lute songs in facsimile and printed editions and later index lute songs in manuscript.
|
|||
| |||
|
| |||
| Member News | |||
| Transitions | |||
|
The following have recently begun new endeavors.
| |||
| Checking in with Members | |||
|
Although Joan Flintoff LoPear retired January 2006 as UCLA's music cataloger after 42 years at UCLA, she continued working with UCLA's Armenian cataloger, Gia Aivazian, on a joint cataloging project for Armenian music scores and books. In 2005 they had cataloged 307 Armenian music scores of about a 400-title backlog. During 2006 their continuing team effort enabled completion of this major cataloging project with the addition of another couple of hundred titles. After the satisfaction of completing this project in October 2006, Joan had the additional pleasure of being informed in December that she had been granted Librarian Emeritus status from UCLA. | |||
| New Members | |||
|
We welcome these new members to MLA!
|
|||
| Committee Reports | |||
|
Several of the committee and subcommittee sessions are summarized earlier in the newsletter (see "Annual Meeting" reports)
Personnel Subcommittee Electronic Reference Services Subcommittee | |||
|
Personnel Subcommittee Michael J. Duffy IV, Northern Illinois University | |||
|
The Personnel Subcommittee held a business meeting on Friday, March 2, from 4:00 until 5:30 p.m. Attending the meeting were Sheri Stormes, chair, Catherine Dixon, Michael Duffy, D.J. Hoek, Linda Mack, Jennifer Ottervik, as well as new members Beth Christensen and Alan Ringwood. The subcommittee welcomed Mac Nelson as a visitor to the meeting. Cathy Dixon, coordinator of the Résumé Review Service (RRS), reported that six people volunteered to review résumés, and twelve people signed up for review consultations. Reviewers left business cards on the RRS table, and several additional people took them with the intention of contacting reviewers after the meeting. The implementation of the service was successful at this meeting. Reviewers were available at convenient times, and for the first time, the RRS had a dedicated room for private meetings with reviewers. The subcommittee discussed creating a page for the RRS on the MLA Web site. Jennifer Ottervik, MLA Placement Officer, reported a successful conference for the interview service. Two institutions employed the interview room to interview potential candidates. The subcommittee briefly discussed the future disposition of the fifteen "Career Resources" bibliographies that Jennifer created for the MLA Web site during her tenure as Placement Officer. Because several subcommittee members were not familiar with the documents, Sheri Stormes suggested that the discussion be tabled until everyone had a chance to review them. The subcommittee will continue this discussion later. Sheri Stormes discussed the evaluation of the Career Mentoring program, using survey forms created by Jeanette Casey. Respondents expressed confusion between the Career Mentoring and Conference Mentoring programs, but supported the continuation of the Career Mentoring program. Due to this confusion and scarcity of mentor volunteers for this program, it was suspended at the 2006 meeting until we could provide the MLA membership with more information. The meeting ended with discussion of a possible program for the 2008 MLA meeting in Newport, Rhode Island, which would provide the MLA membership with information about the Career Mentoring program, as well as other services, including Placement Services, Conference Mentoring, Résumé Review, and the Education Committee's upcoming outreach program. Subcommittee members suggested mock interviews and guidelines for promotion and tenure of faculty status academic librarians as possible topics for future discussion. The subcommittee wishes to thank Jennifer Ottervik, MLA's outgoing Placement Officer, for her four years of service as an ex officio member of the committee, and to welcome Susannah Cleveland, MLA's Placement Officer-elect, as a new ex officio member.
| |||
|
Electronic Reference Services Subcommittee
Stephen Luttmann, Chair | |||
|
Members of several Reference and Public Services subcommittees collaborated on a well-attended session on Reference Sources for American Music. "Researching Contemporary and Living American Composers" by Tammy Ravas (University of Houston) offered an account of her experiences in teaching a graduate-level session on researching living American composers, demonstrating the usefulness of a wide variety of print and online resources. "DRAM to RAMH: Recent and Forthcoming American Music Reference and Research tools" by Laurie Sampsel (University of Colorado, Boulder) examined not only print and online American music reference tools, but also evaluated the American content in such products as Grove Music Online. "Beyond the Music: American Music in General Reference Databases" by Jennifer Oates (Queens College, City University of New York) took matters a step further by examining American music coverage in free and subscription-based databases devoted to American studies but not specifically musical in nature. "One Day It'll All Make Sense: Hip Hop Resources for Librarians and Teachers" by Andrew Leach (Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College, Chicago) provided an overview/refresher of useful rap and hip-hop resources in all media suitable for librarians, teachers, and scholars.
|
|||
| Roundtable Reports | |||
|
Archives/Women in Music Black Music Collections Performing Arts/Video Small Academic Libraries Technical Services Roundtable | |||
|
Archives Roundtable Women in Music Roundtable Richard Boursy, Yale University | |||
|
The 2007 MLA/SAM conference in Pittsburgh featured no fewer than seven sessions on "American Music in American Libraries," many of them dealing with archival collections. The Archives Roundtable collaborated with the Women and Music Roundtable (coordinated by Robin Rausch and Sarah Dorsey) in sponsoring one of these sessions, under the title "Women's Music Archives: New Resources and a Case Study," featuring presentations by Sarah Dorsey, Anna-Lise Santella, and Jerry McBride. Sarah is the music librarian at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, but in 2006 she spent six months in Washington D.C. processing the papers of an important female composer, an experience she recounted in "The Louise Talma Papers at the Library of Congress: A Sabbatical of Sorts." Talma (1906-1996), a leading disciple of Nadia Boulanger, taught at Hunter College and at Fontainebleau, and composed the opera The Alcestiad as well as many other works. Anna-Lise Santella is writing a dissertation at the University of Chicago on the history of American women's orchestras. In a presentation titled "The Case of the Missing Orchestra: On the Art of Detection and Collection in Women's Orchestra Research," she focused on the challenges of pursuing such a topic, and offered practical suggestions to librarians and archivists on how they can facilitate archival research. While Anna-Lise discussed women's orchestras in the first half of the 20th century, an era when most orchestras did not admit women, Jerry McBride (the music librarian at Stanford University) examined a more recent organization in his presentation on "Women's Philharmonic Collections at Stanford University and the Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music, Philadelphia." The Women's Philharmonic, which was active from 1981 to 2004, sought to promote women composers, conductors, and performers. After disbanding, it placed its performing materials at the Fleisher Collection and the remainder of its archives at Stanford. At the 2006 meeting in Memphis, Matt Snyder (New York Public Library) proposed that the Music Library Association should develop standards for the processing of music archives. The MLA Board quickly agreed to the creation of a Working Group on Archival Standards for Music Materials, chaired by Matt. Most of the group's work has been conducted via e-mail, but some members of the group did meet at the 2007 conference in Pittsburgh. In October 2006 the group released the first draft of its manual, with an introduction by Andrea Cawelti (Harvard University) and description guidelines by Matt. Since that time the group has been revising this draft. Matt has stepped down as chair, but he continues to play an important role in the group's work.
| |||
|
Black Music Collections Roundtable
Andrew Leach, Center for Black Music Research | |||
|
MLA's Black Music Collections Roundtable (BMCRT) met on Friday, March 2, 2007, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Eighteen people were in attendance. For the first time in several years, the BMCRT meeting consisted entirely of a roundtable discussion with no formal presentations. This made for a nice change of pace and gave the attendees an opportunity to become better acquainted with one another and discuss several topics of common interest. Many attendees shared news of recent projects undertaken and new collections acquired at their libraries and archives. This was followed by an interesting discussion regarding collection development issues (such as the use of approval plans and the acquisition of obscure and out-of-print jazz and blues recordings), cataloging issues (including the limitations of LC subject headings for some popular music genres and the potential usefulness of Allmusic.com genre terms within catalog records), and recent and forthcoming electronic resources (including African American Song, African American Music Reference, and A Basic Music Library). The meeting concluded with a conversation about potential topics for a BMCRT-sponsored session at MLA 2008 in Newport, Rhode Island. | |||
|
Performing Arts Roundtable Video Roundtable Betty Woerner, Reed College | |||
|
The Performing Arts Roundtable and the Video Roundtable held a joint meeting in Pittsburgh. Thomas Pease, of the Library of Congress, gave a presentation on Community Arts Blogging in the District of Columbia (DC) area. Blogs need to have sponsors who have credibility, use real names, post a biography, and have contact information. Blogs can be used to post schedules, programs, and community educational opportunities, but also may include Web radio, video files, and photos, and may encourage interactive feedback from audiences. DC blogsites include Wolftrap, Arena Stage, the Shakespeare Theatre, and Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Since the demise of DC's classical-only radio station, WETA has picked up classical music as a blog—now the only classical radio transmission in the District of Columbia. Paula Matthews, of Princeton University, spoke on an alumni gift to Princeton that is to be used as seed money for a University Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. Libraries, staff, and resources are currently spread around campus in several different buildings, some with strong programs and collections and others not. Paula spoke about the beginnings of planning for this initiative. Vince Novarra, of the University of Maryland, spoke about the James J. Taylor Collection of the Washington Area Performing Arts Video Archive. Theatre director James J. Taylor studied videography and taped theatre productions in the DC area, using the NYPL archive as a model. He funded the project himself. After his death in 2005, the 2,000+ videos in the collection were sent to the University of Maryland Performing Arts Center and library. There is little music in the collection, which is primarily theatre, performance art, and modern dance. It includes Kennedy Center and major theatrical productions. The collection was previously housed at the District of Columbia Public Libraries, which still keeps copies of the videos. DVD access copies are made from the archival tapes in-house and are cataloged and the contents cross-checked to settle discrepancies. The theatre faculty at the University of Maryland are advising the library as to which copies to make first.
Renée Camus of Scarecrow Press spoke on a self-produced video of historical dance she and her husband recently completed. She described the tasks and procedures involved, as well as the budgeted expenditures.
| |||
|
Small Academic Libraries Roundtable Sarah Canino, Vassar College; Barbara R. Walzer, Sarah Lawrence College | |||
|
The Small Academic Libraries Roundtable met in the Rivers Room on Saturday, March 3rd. After introductory remarks, Deane Root with contributing remarks by Mary Wallace Davidson presented an overview of the 1981 edition of Resources of American Music History: a Directory of Source Materials from the Revolution to World War II (RAMH), University of Illinois Press. This original work included historic and archival materials, many primary sources from public and private collections. The volume was organized by state, town, and collections within those locales. Additionally the editors created a thesaurus of terms for standardization. Dr. Root discussed challenges that needed to be considered in organizing a new updated edition. Examples included private collections listed in the older version when the collection has a different owner or location; how to manage defunct organizations, such as Carl Fisher, with archives distributed to several organizations; and new institutions and collections since 1981. Also taken into consideration would be the level of detail in the description, whether it makes sense to produce a print version or should it be a wiki, who would manage the oversight of revisions and/or additions and whether the new edition, if subscription based (rather than free), would exclude smaller institutions. This led to a lively discussion about funding support from state, county and even congressional sources for such an undertaking. This dovetailed with a description by Alisa Rata on the Texas Chapter's project, Checklist of Texas Composers, which began as a small undertaking to update the print product. They are currently setting goals and objectives, investigating funding and exploring ways to integrate with the Texas Music Office. During the business meeting portion of our session, Barbara Walzer asked about the possibility of a listserv for small academic librarians. It was suggested that perhaps MLA-L might host a mini-forum, but we would need someone other than Ralph Papakian to monitor it. Our roundtable is up for renewal and Sarah Canino asked for six letters of support. These letters must be sent through U.S. Mail to our new MLA President, Phil Vandermeer. E-mail letters of continuance will not be accepted. We would like to thank Joy Pile, Middlebury College, for taking and transcribing detailed minutes. | |||
|
Technical Services Roundtable Wendy Sistrunk, University of Missouri, Kansas City | |||
|
Over fifty people attended the Technical Services Roundtable, which this year did not feature a formal program, but instead offered a chance for open discussion of topics and exchange of ideas, led by co-coordinators Wendy Sistrunk and Patty Falk. Wendy announced that her and Patty's four-year term as co-coordinators of the roundtable was up and that volunteers were being sought to succeed them. An important issue facing libraries these days is the boom in libraries acquiring and creating digital collections. What role do technical services librarians play? Too often, elements of description and bibliographic access are left to those with no training in metadata standards. Too, many libraries create digital collections as part of anniversary celebrations or other media presentations. There is pressure to get these materials available on the Web, but not enough staff to make them wholly accessible or linked in the library's OPAC. We must rely on "creators" or other non-library staff to help, but standards are needed. Mark Scharff said his institution, Washington University in St. Louis, has created standards that anyone can use, describing the absolute minimum requirements (see http://digital.wustl.edu/standards/meta_required.html). Libraries are encouraged to engage the expertise of their technical services folks and create their own minimum standards.
Many technical services departments are trying to assess their use of statistics, how statistics are kept and for whom. Is there data that can be discovered in other ways so that Technical Services staff time can be freed up? Statistics come into play during accreditation reviews, for planning space needs and expansion, etc., in addition to workload assessment and job evaluation. Some libraries use what is referred to as a "balanced scorecard" to match the cost per unit of cataloging and the impact with a library's mission. We need to engage the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) to ask them to include other materials (especially non-print) that are deemed necessary.
| |||
| |||
| Chapter Reports | |||
|
Atlantic New York State–Ontario | |||
|
Atlantic Chapter Mary Prendergast, University of Virginia | |||
|
The University of Pennsylvania's Van Pelt-Dietrich Library was the setting for the Atlantic Chapter's fall meeting on October 6–7, 2006. Dick Griscom and his staff rolled out the red carpet and assembled a dynamic roster of speakers. One clearly discernible theme of the program was the role of the librarian in uncovering lost treasures and bringing them to light. Dick Griscom started off the proceedings with a history of the Otto E. Albrecht Library. Albrecht's role in the development of the collection was enormous; complaints to Penn's president about the state of the music holdings led to his being appointed "curator of music" in 1937, whereupon he set about righting the situation, tracking down early editions and manuscripts in Europe and assembling the core of what is today a world-class collection. Significant collections include those of Francis Hopkinson, Declaration signer and self-professed "first native of the United States who has produced a musical composition" and Marian Anderson, containing the diva's correspondence, papers, and her entire music and sound recordings libraries. The Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy collections include over 2000 scores and sets of parts marked by the conductors and allow for comparison between these two seminal figures in Philadelphia musical life. A recent addition is the Rudolf Serkin Collection, which one of our speakers was instrumental in acquiring. In "Writing the Biography of Rudolf Serkin: Speed Bumps and Potholes," Stephen Lehmann, Humanities Bibliographer at the University of Pennsylvania, talked about the challenges of tackling a project of this magnitude. Due to his dogged determination and diplomacy, he and his co-author were granted unique access to the performer's papers, and this relationship, forged over years of research and writing, helped prompt the eventual bequest. In "What to Do if You Find a Beethoven Autograph in your Library," Jeffrey Kallberg (University of Pennsylvania) described his work on the autograph of the four-hand piano version of Beethoven's monumental Grosse Fuge in B flat major. Known only from a brief 1890 catalog description and never before seen by Beethoven scholars, it was discovered by an astute librarian at the Palmer Theological Seminary in 2005. The auspicious task of authenticating the autograph fell to Kallberg. The manuscript's journey from the Palmer Theological Seminary to Sotheby's (where it was purchased anonymously for $1.95 million) to its presentation to Juilliard in February 2006 has all the trappings of a novel of intrigue, and Kallberg did full justice to the story. Kile Smith, Curator of the Fleisher Collection at the Free Library of Philadelphia, related a coup of his own, unearthing George Antheil's manuscript of Music to a World's Fair Film, written in 1939 for a film presented at the World's Fair in New York. In addition to identifying the piece, he worked to bring it out of obscurity; one innovative means he's found for spreading the word is his weekly radio show Discoveries from the Fleisher Collection. The talks were followed by tours of the library by Marjorie Hassen and Ancil George and a presentation by Laurie Allen on PennTags, the social bookmarking tool that allows users to locate, organize and share online resources. A sumptuous reception hosted by the Penn Library in the Rosenwald Gallery of Van Pelt-Dietrich Library ended the day on a festive note. During the reception, special guest Richard Smiraglia (Long Island University) and Brad Young signed copies of their new book, Bibliographic Control of Music, 1897-2000. Afterwards, members hit the streets to check out some of the city's fine restaurants and jazz clubs. Following breakfast on Saturday morning, Kathy Glennan (University of Maryland) gave us her insider's view of the evolution of the successor to AACR2, "RDA: Extreme Makeover or Putting Lipstick on a Pig?" She discussed some hurdles inherent in a work of this magnitude: competing goals of stakeholders; tensions over RDA's scope and purpose (mere revision or a blueprint for the future?); and tight timelines for review. In "Supreme Grand Master: An Unrecorded Early American Musical Imprint," Brad Young detailed his discovery of and research on an 1811 American imprint known previously only from the composer's works list, Raynor Taylor's Masonic Air and Chorus and Masonic Hymn. Brad examined bibliographic evidence gleaned from the artifact itself, the history of the sites associated with the works, and interesting biographical sketches of the composer and personages in his milieu. He ended with what was likely the first public presentation of the work (via MIDI file) in nearly 200 years.
During our business meeting, we got a preview of the upcoming annual meeting in Pittsburgh from the Local Arrangements Committee, and Chair Steve Landstreet (Free Library of Philadelphia) passed on the gavel to Mary Prendergast. Carl Rahkonen invited the chapter to Indiana University of Pennsylvania for the 2007 meeting. Many thanks to Dick Griscom and Brad Young for organizing the fine program.
| |||
| New York State–Ontario Suzanne Meyers Sawa, Chair | |||
|
The New York State–Ontario Chapter held its annual meeting on October 13 and 14, 2006, at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music, Toronto, Ontario. We had not had a meeting in Toronto for many years, and, unfortunately, Mother Nature prevented our colleagues from Rochester and Buffalo from attending (remember that huge snowstorm?). However, two members from further east, Carole Vidali and Jane Subramaniam, were able to make the trip. Friday night featured a concert by the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra, which performed works by Ravel (Rapsodie espagnole), Martin (Ballade, for flute and orchestra), Debussy (Rhapsody, for clarinet and orchestra) and Franck (Symphony in D minor). On Saturday morning, Rob van der Bliek (York University, Toronto) led a panel discussion, "Researching, Writing and Publishing about Jazz," with noted Canadian authors Mark Miller, David Lee, and Jack Chambers. After coffee and an informal tour of the Faculty of Music Library, Suzanne Meyers Sawa (substituting for Gerry Szymanski, who was marooned in Rochester due to the closure of highway I-90) conducted an interview with noted Canadian composer Marjan Mozetich. Gerry's title was "Angels, Postcards, and Affairs of the Heart: an Interview with Canadian Composer Marjan Mozetich."
Following lunch, the group toured three music institutions: the Canadian Music Centre, the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Music Library and Archives, and the CBC Museum, and the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts (the new home of the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada). Our thanks go to Nicholas Tustin of the CMC, Nicole Blain of the CBC, and Wayne Vogan of the COC for their time and energy in providing these tours. I particularly liked standing in the orchestra pit of the new opera house! The meeting ended with a wonderful banquet at the Spadina Garden Chinese restaurant, which features Hakka style cuisine. Our fall meeting is tentatively set to take place at SUNY Fredonia, the dates yet to be determined.
| |||
| Beyond MLA | |||
|
Invitation to IAML Conference
You are invited to the IAML conference 2007 to be held at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music from 1–6 July. The venue is in the historic centre of the city of Sydney, on the edge of the Botanical Gardens, a short walk from the Opera House and Sydney Harbour. Sydney is an international city of over four million people with many concert halls, theatres, libraries, art galleries and museums. The post conference tour will take delegates to Canberra, Australia's capital, for a two-day tour with visits to the National Library of Australia, and other national institutions and monuments. As the interests of IAML and MLA coincide considerably, I'd like to encourage you to look at the conference Web site where you'll find a very interesting program of papers, social events and concerts. As this is the first IAML conference to be held in Australia, the conference program emphasizes the Australian context where possible. Also, the social program and concerts are designed to introduce delegates to Australian music and culture. The registration form is available on the website, and early bird registration fees are available until 30 April. We would be very pleased to welcome MLA members to our conference, and enjoy the professional and social opportunities this would generate. I hope to meet some of you there.
Laurel Dingle
| |||
| Beyond MLA | |||
Chuck Herrold Receives Distinguished Service Award
The Executive Board of the Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG) is honored to name Charles M. "Chuck" Herrold, Jr. as the seventh recipient of MOUG's Distinguished Service Award.
This award has been established to recognize and honor someone who has made significant professional contributions to music users of OCLC. The MOUG Executive Board selects a recipient based on nominations received from the MOUG membership. Herrold received the award in Pittsburgh during MOUG's annual business meeting on February 28, 2007. Herrold's singular contribution to the NACO-Music Project inspired the nomination for this award. The MOUG-sponsored NACO-Music Project (NMP) is part of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC). Participants include more than forty music libraries or collections at university, college, conservatory, and public libraries that contribute music name and name/uniform title authority records to the LC/NACO Authority File. Participants agree to follow a common—and rigorous—set of standards and guidelines in order to maintain the integrity of the large shared authority file. In August 1996, Herrold accomplished the review for "independent" (i.e., non-supervised) status for the contribution of name/title authority records by submitting eighty records without a single error. (He submitted his first batch of records for review around April 1995 and had been independent for name-only records since early 1996.) Through September 30, 2006, Herrold single-handedly added 21,725 new name-authority records to the national database, and edited an additional 20,637, for a total of 42,362. As the letter of nomination said, with notable understatement, this is "an enormous number" of records. According to MOUG's award letter, "the time, money, and effort saved at each of our respective institutions or businesses through this Herculean labor of love is surely incalculable. It will stand for decades as the ne plus ultra of cooperative effort by an individual in the worlds of music cataloging and music librarianship, and to some extent, even out in the larger universe of librarianship in general. We stand in awe of your passionate dedication to our shared goals, and we give you this award today in the humble hope of even more to come. Thank you, dear, mysterious, friend-of-all from Pittsburgh, known to all of us as 'Mr. PPi-MA.'" (PPi-MA is the USMARC organizational code—formerly known as the "NUC symbol"—for the Music Department of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.) The NACO-Music Project is coordinated by Ralph Papakhian at the William & Gayle Cook Music Library, Indiana University, Bloomington; it is administered as a funnel project of the PCC's Name Authority Cooperative Program (NACO). Upon hearing of the award, Papakhian observed that Herrold "has not only been among the most prolific contributor of name authority records to the NACO-Music Project, but he has also been a regular trainer and reviewer of many of the other NMP participants. He has been a key reason why the NACO-Music Project is the most productive 'funnel' group in the national NACO program. . . . I think it's wonderful that Chuck Herrold received the MOUG Distinguished Service Award!" Herrold is Senior Catalog Librarian at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and holder of a library degree from Syracuse University. A colleague from the Carnegie Library remarked, "we at Carnegie Library are truly blessed to have Chuck's devotion to our music materials, his loyalty to this institution, and his congeniality." Another added, "working with Chuck has been and continues to be a treasured privilege. He is one amazing person, and the music library world—catalogers, public service librarians, and the public as well, both at the Carnegie Library and elsewhere—benefits from his devotion to the cataloging of music materials." The Executive Board, along with the entire MOUG membership, is proud to recognize Chuck Herrold's passion for music cataloging, and especially his unparalleled contributions to the NACO-Music Project. For more information about MOUG, please visit http://www.musicoclcusers.org/.
|
|||
| |||
|
| |||
| Calendar | |||
| |||
|
Over the past decade MLA has transformed itself into an organization that is more professional in its day-to-day operations requiring more sophisticated methods to manage both its financial resources and human talent. This year MLA would like to honor an individual who has been at the center of this transformation.
