One of the most enjoyable aspects of being MLA President is the opportunity to tell people that they have won an award. Typically we announce these awards at the annual meeting and often those given awards are not able to be at the meeting. However, while presenting these awards does not come with the “swag” given away at the Oscars, I am still privileged to receive true expressions of gratitude such as the letter reprinted below:
 

27 March 2008

Dear Mr. Vandermeer:

I was very pleased and satisfied to receive your letter of 23 February, informing me of being selected as the recipient of the 2008 Vincent H. Duckles Award.

As the Director of this centre and the editor of the Diccionario de la Zarzuela: España e Hispanoamérica, I would like to sincerely thank you for this recognition, which honours our work and, above all, comes as a welcome acknowledgement for a genre as important to the entire Spanish-speaking world as the zarzuela.

I would also like to express my gratitude on behalf of all the scholars and researchers who diligently contributed the best of their knowledge on the subject to the Diccionario, which is already a reference for the study of one of the most important facets of Spanish music history.

Please pass on my personal gratitude, as well as that of the contributors to Kendall Crilly and all the members of the Committee.

Yours sincerely,
Emilio Casares Rodicio
Director, Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales
Madrid

I appreciate the hard work that Ken, Linda Fairtile, and Charles Reynolds put into the Awards Committee this past year. In addition to the Duckles Award (for best book-length bibliography or other research tool in music), this committee also made recommendations for awarding the Richard S. Hill Award (for best article on music librarianship or of a music-bibliographic nature) and the Eva Judd O’Meara Award (for best review in Notes). James Deaville and our own colleague John Wagstaff were presented these awards this year as well.

Like Hill and O’Meara, most MLA awards support our profession in some way, and this is quite appropriate. The Bradley and Gerboth Awards recognize and support research in music librarianship, as do the Best of Chapters. The Freeman Travel Grants bring new members of our association to the national meetings. The Special Achievement Award recognizes extraordinary service to our profession and the MLA Citation (our highest award) recognizes those indispensable individuals who have provided distinguished service to music librarianship. They are the ones without whom our profession would be lacking. This year MLA had the honor of awarding the Citation to Ralph Papakhian, one of the true shining lights of our field and truly one of its indispensable members. (Unfortunately, Ralph was unable to be in Newport, so we will simply have to repeat our standing ovation for him next year in Chicago.)

The two MLA awards that make a particular effort to reach out beyond music librarianship are the Duckles Award and the Dena Epstein Award for archival and library research in American Music. The Duckles Award, as it proved this year, has an international reach. Since 1978 MLA has honored publications from France, Belgium, Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, and the United States. Since its inception in 1996, MLA through the generosity of Dena and Morton Epstein (and many of you) has provided funding for twenty-five individuals to carry out research on American music, many who have published distinguished research due to the award. This year alone I have received almost a dozen inquiries about the terms of this award, most from individuals who are not members of MLA.

I find this to be a positive trend. MLA has always been committed to outreach, and MLA’s Publicity Officer has been at the forefront of those efforts. For the past four years that intrepid individual has been Ken Calkins, Music Librarian at UC San Diego. Ken has been MLA’s public face to the outside world, representing us at sister organizations such as ALA, PLA, and AMS. He has been on top of our activities with regular news releases to the public, arranging for exhibitions of MLA activities and publications, and serving on a slew of committees by nature of his position. I would like to publicly offer profuse thanks to Ken for the superb job he has done these past years. He deserves all our gratitude for his exemplary service.

In July, Renée McBride will assume the newly titled position of Publicity and Outreach Officer, and we are looking forward to great things from her. Renée and the MLA Board will begin to evaluate our Publicity and Outreach activities at the June Board Meeting, and we will be asking for your input over the next year or so. So think about what MLA can do, for music librarianship, the broader world of public and academic librarianship, the larger world of music scholarship, etc. I won’t say the sky’s the limit. But I hope that we are all committed to MLA being “in the world” and that we can look for newer more effective ways in which we can serve. We already do a lot, from Web sites on copyright issues and preservation to advising on FRBR (after all, who ever thought about bibliographic relationships except music catalogers?). Can we do more? It’s up to all of us.

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Nancy Zavac, University of Miami

The “Hot Topics” session sponsored by the MLA Education Committee and moderated by Ruthann McTyre, University of Iowa, had a “standing room” only crowd of 185 attendees. The first question asked for comments about the new Grove/Oxford Music Online product. Leslie Bennett from the University of Oregon replied that the publisher was responsive to suggestions. After no further discussion, it was decided to reexamine this question next year.

 The next topic was Web meta-lists for music and musicology. Who is maintaining them? Can we maintain them? What are the alternatives that folks are using? Tom Moore from Duke University said he discontinued Duke’s DW3 site because he felt no one institution could maintain a meta-list and that he found out that his faculty was not using the site. David Day, Brigham Young University, reported that he is working on a bibliography of music reference sources that he will send out on MLA-L soon. The question was brought up “Can MLA maintain a meta-list as a Wikipedia?”

Ruthann brought up the question of Netflix. Anybody out there subscribing? The University of Iowa subscribes and they use the service as a part of interlibrary loan. They can fulfill requests faster that way, and then later purchase the DVD for their collection. Ruthann did mention that when the DVD arrives, the ILL staff take it out of the container and rebox it before it is checked out to the patron.

Who is using the OCLC Collection Assessment Tool? How are you using it? Words of wisdom or ideas to share?  Jennifer Matthews, University of Notre Dame, is using the assessment tool to compare her institution to peer institutions. Pamela Bristah from Wellesley College said it is useful for obtaining ILL activity if you buy the version with that feature. David Day remarked that we could apply the Assessment Tool against a standard such as the Basic Music Library, and suggested that MLA could work with OCLC on a cooperative project.

The next topic focused on redesigning our AV/media areas in the age of the learning commons. Conventional AV/media centers are rapidly becoming out of date. How are libraries reconfiguring their unused high-walled audio carrels to keep students in our library spaces? What is the vision of the music library space of the future? Bob Acker reported that he lost his AV/media lab to a Mac Lab. He was able to keep five listening stations. Michael Hurley from Youngstown University reported that he replaced listening carrels with a lounge area with individual listening stations. The new area is being used a lot more. Jim Farrington, Eastman School of Music, said they had 50 listening stations and 3 video stations. They took out the carrels and had them redone. They now have 18 audio carrels, 8 video stations and 8 computer stations. They added transfer stations for audio/video, a flat-bed scanner and a microfilm scanner. Jane Gottlieb raised the question of what Eastman does about copyright. Jim replied that they have signs on the equipment. Ruthann joked that the MLA shop should sell the signs!

Tom Moore commented that shelving was taking over their seating areas so they have moved the monograph collection to compact storage and created attractive seating areas. Jennifer Riley reported that Indiana University Libraries are moving items into off-site storage facilities. Ruthann commented that Iowa is marking materials to send to storage when an off-site facility is completed.

Digital Music Scores (fee or free). How happy are folks with the fee-based subscriptions to e-scores? As more libraries are digitizing our public domain collections, are there ways to harness these alternatives into a more consolidated interface? Are libraries that are digitizing these scores entering them in OCLC? Can we use OCLC as our “search engine” to open collections of music scores by libraries? Jim Farrington reported that Sibley has digitized 2600 public domain scores that are not common repertoire. Tom Moore says that in addition to their large sheet music collection, Duke plans to digitize a collection of string quartets that are unique to their library. The Center for Institutional Cooperation is developing a union list of shared repertoire and then plans to start a digitization project. Jenny Colvin, Furman University, asked if the digitized scores would be available to libraries outside of the CIC. The answer was that content would only be shared with member institutions so that copyright would not be a “stopword.” Darwin Scott commented that Brandeis would digitize important pre-1923 music reference sources as part of a project through the Boston Library Consortium.

Antoinette Powell from Lawrence University asked: how are music libraries preserving their collections of reel-to-reel tapes? Chris Durman from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, did a poster session on restoring reels “on the cheap.” John Anderies, Haverford College, said their spoken word collection is being digitized and two CD copies (one archival, one for use) are being made. Ruthann reported that the University of Iowa was starting a project to digitize reels; the primary storage device will be a hard drive. Rebecca Littman, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, was successful in obtaining an ARSC grant to digitize reels including rare radio programs. Lois Kuyper-Rushing, Lousiana State University, has had a program for the last four years to convert the school recital tapes to CD. George Blood from George Blood Audio gave several recommendations for converting reels to digital media. Ginny Danielson from Harvard announced that the Grammy Foundation gives grants to preserve collections that are “culturally significant and unique.”

The discussion on budgeting for approval plans centered on the difficulty of getting a handle on continuations. Leslie Bennett mentioned that Otto Harrassowitz used to publish a list of monumental editions which was helpful for budgeting. She suggested that music librarians should encourage Harrassowitz to publish the list again.

The final issue was the future of CDs and use of streaming audio in music libraries. Ruthann first asked who is still buying CDs? Everyone present raised their hands. She then asked is anyone relying entirely on streaming products? No one said yes. D.J. Hoek, Northwestern University, raised the question of how libraries can purchase music that is only being distributed as downloads? Jenny Colvin commented that MLA should be proactive in working with record companies. Phil Vandermeer, president of MLA, commented that MLA is going to look into this issue. Laura Danker, Williamstown Public Library (past president of MLA), remarked that many libraries will be affected by the CD vs. streaming situation and perhaps MLA could join with other library organizations. D.J. Hoek said we need to work with the vendors of streaming audio products to let them know what we need in our libraries. If not, pretty soon, we’ll all have the same collections. He paraphrased a statement by James Coover: “…the intellectual activity of selecting materials with which to build strong collections … is considered by music librarians to be their most profound and sacred professional trust.” Cathy Gerhart, University of Washington, questioned if the material streamed today will be available in 10 years. Can we trust the vendors?

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Poster Sessions Offer Wide-Ranging Topics

Tammy Ravas, University of Montana

The year 2008 proved to be a busy one for poster sessions. Interest in presenting was quite high as we had a large number of submissions from which only twelve were selected. Congratulations to the selected presenters for this year!

We had a wide range of topics covered this year from the use of clickers in the classroom to digitization and preservation projects to presentations on music special collections. Despite some tight quarters, presenters kept an effervescent and lively energy as interested attendees asked questions and learned about colleagues’ research and creative solutions to challenges.

This year, some of our poster sessions have been presented online using the MLA 2008 Conference Blog. Readers can view about half of the sessions presented this year by visiting the blog at the following URL: http://mlanewport.blogspot.com/. Next year, we plan on having 100 percent of the poster presentations online so that they will have better exposure to the MLA membership.

Here is a list of the presenters and the titles of their posters, in no particular order:

• Verletta Kern and Alison Fox, “Music for Almost Everybody: The Barney Childs Collection.”
• Brian McMillan, Jenn Riley, and Joseph Hafner, “Metadata Infrastructure for Sound Recordings.”
• Christine Kubiak, and Stephanie Hewson, “Violin Parlor Music Pedagogy through the Study of the Method Books of Local Professor L.E. Hersey.”
• Thomas Bell, “Underground Architects of Modern Pop Music: A Core Collection.”
• Philip Ponella and Mark Notess, “Variations3 Digital Music Library Update.”
• Jim Farrington and Alice Carli, “So Easy… A(ny) Library Can Do It.”
• Mark McKnight and Andrew Justice, “Online College of Music Recordings at the University of North Texas.”
• Nobue Matsuoka-Motley, “Using Clickers in the Classroom: Adding an Interactive Element.”
• Nathalie Hristov and Alan Wallace, “Marketing Music Library Services through Video Infomercial and Resource Guides.”
• Stephen Henry, “Using Flowcharts for Training Reference Assistants in Known-Item Reference Transactions.”
• Steven Nordstrom, “The Music Library Goes Global: Collaborating, Collecting, and Communicating Traditional Music in Vanderbilt University’s Digital Collection of East African Recordings, the First Component of its Global Music Archive.”
• Chris Durman and Mark Puente, “Similar Steps for Differing Formats: Digitizing Rare Media in the University of Tennessee Libraries.”

“MLA Full Circle,” the second plenary session of the annual meeting in Newport, Rhode Island, gave attendees an entertaining overview of services MLA provides for members. The programs were described through short skits (fun and informative!). Below is some of the information presented at the session. Contact the individuals indicated for more details.

The Career Mentoring Program is intended to assist those entering music librarianship or who are changing roles within music librarianship, by pairing each participant with an experienced music librarian. This senior colleague provides career advice, may assist with an agreed-upon project, such as tenure review, and acts as a friendly and knowledgeable sounding board. The Career Mentoring Program will be up and running sometime after changes stemming from the Task Force to Review the MLA Committee Structure are in place. In the meantime, please direct questions to Sheridan Stormes, Chair of the Personnel Subcommittee (sstormes@butler.edu).

The Conference Mentoring Program is intended to assist MLA conference newcomers so that they can get the most out of the conference experience. Mentors in the program will answer questions about the structure of MLA, the purpose of the conference, and how those purposes are carried out in various forums. Mentors and their mentees will attend sessions, roundtables, and exhibits together. Mentors will also introduce mentees to other MLA conference participants in attendance to enhance their interpersonal experience. Mentors are there to be friendly and supportive before, during, and quite possibly, after the conference. Contact Laura Moody (lmoody@sfsu.edu).

The Educational Outreach Program, sponsored by the Education Committee and the Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG), is an initiative that trains instructors to teach workshops on the basics of music librarianship to new music librarians, public library librarians, library school students, and library support staff. Currently, the program includes three workshops: Music Reference, Music Cataloging, and Music Acquisitions/Collection Development that are taught through the MLA chapters in hopes of attracting underrepresented groups and new members to the Music Library Association. Contact Holling Smith-Borne (holling.j.smith-borne@vanderbilt.edu).

The New Members Forum, held before the Opening Reception, gives first-time conference attendees an opportunity to learn about MLA as an organization, offers suggestions on how to navigate the conference, and provides the “calm moment before the storm” in which questions can be asked and answered. Board members and other MLA luminaries introduce themselves, and those participating in the conference buddy program meet up for the first time—all in the environment of good food and great company. Contact Abigail Cross (abigail.aldoory@gmail.com).

The Placement Service is designed to assist individuals who seek initial or new employment in the field of music librarianship. To this end, the Placement Officer publishes positions currently available in academic, public, performing arts, orchestra, conservatory, media, or radio libraries. Positions not requiring an MLS are also included when identified. Contact Susannah Cleveland, the current Placement Officer at (clevels@bgsu.edu).

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Mentoring Moments

Is there an encounter, an experience, a mentoring moment that made a difference in your professional life? Someone who influenced you and encouraged you? Tell us about it; a few lines or a couple paragraphs, anonymous or with attribution, send your mentoring moments to the MLA Newsletter. Let others know the ways that MLA and its members have been mentors to you.

Bibliographic Control Committee

The report of the Bibliographic Control Committee can be found in the March–April issue of the newsletter.  The BCC subcommittee reports can be found below.
 

Margaret Kaus, chair, thanked those subcommittee members rotating off: Richard Burbank, Jean Harden, Michi Hoban, and Nancy Sack. Full highlights of the ALA ACIG meetings in Washington, DC (Summer 07) and Philadelphia, PA (Midwinter 08) will be sent to the subcommittee members. Of interest to the subcommittee was an ACIG program on Faceted Access and Authority Control given in Washington. At the Philadelphia ACIG meeting, there were announcements from LC about use of the musical sharp sign and the use of CJK characters in the 4xx and 6xx fields in authority records.

The subcommittee discussed the Document on Justification for Authority Work. A four member group from the subcommittee had created a draft in spring 07. The subcommittee decided to continue working on the document, concentrating on language and style.

The floor was opened to discussion on RDA and Library of Congress memo LC/12. Everyone was encouraged to respond via Kathy Glennan or Mark Scharff. Deadline for comments was close of business Thursday, February 28, 2008.

Several sections of the document were highlighted:

• Using original language of titles
• List of terms translated to Engligh
• Placement (in RDA) of the section on musico-dramatic works
• Use of the term “Selections”
• Proposed changes to medium of performance terms and qualifiers

Specific areas that people might wish to comment on would include any changes proposed in LC/12 that would provide backwards-compatibility issues, changes to chorus scores, cadenza rules, order of information, typos, etc.

There was no new business.
 

Members present: Kathy Glennan (chair), Joe Bartl, (LC Representative), Steve Henry, Mark Scharff (MLA liaison to CC:DA), Terry Simpkins, Patricia Thomson

At its business meeting in Newport, the Subcommittee on Descriptive Cataloging devoted the bulk of its time to discussing 5JSC/LC/12, LC’s Proposed revision of RDA chap. 6, Additional instructions for musical works and expressions. The Joint Steering Committee released this 38-page document less than two weeks before the MLA annual meeting. Kathy led the discussions, working to identify major issues and areas of agreement and disagreement that will help inform the MLA response to this document, which is due on Feb. 29. Issues discussed included:

• Retain “Selections” or extend “Selected novels [etc.]” concept to music instructions. No agreement about possible substitution of “Excerpts” instead.
• Create categories of instructions to reflect works by one composer and collaborative works, instead of the LC proposal’s suggestion to use instrumental works and collaborative works.
• Agree with LC’s approach to consider medium of performance as stable vs. flexible.
• No consensus on elimination of long title rule (6.18.0.3b).
• Concern about language issues, including the proposal to create preferred titles in the language of the cataloging agency, and using the composer’s terminology to name works.
• Generally agree with the elimination of the rule of three for medium of performance, with the expectation that technology would help with the backwards compatibility issues.
• Strongly disagree with LC’s 6.18.0.3c.1, Titles that are not distinctive. The subcommittee found the closed list especially troubling, especially since LC articulated no obvious principle for what does and does not appear on this list.
• Consensus to put forward MLA’s rule revision proposals to disentangle adaptations/arrangements in RDA 6.17.1 and 6.17.3.

The subcommittee also discussed issues relating to 5JSC/LC/11, Designation of Roles in RDA, a 12-page document also released by the Joint Steering Committee just a few weeks before the Newport meeting. Our discussion centered on issues surrounding limiting specific role relationships to FRBR group 1 entities, as well as specific recommendations for clarifying definitions.
The subcommittee membership changed at the end of the Newport meeting. Rob Freeborn and Terry Simpkins rotated off the subcommittee after four years of service, as did Kathy Glennan, who completed her term as chair. We thank these three for their service. Mark Scharff will serve as the subcommittee’s new chair.

Our Web site contains information about the subcommittee, its activities, and the semi-annual CC:DA reports. We welcome comments and questions about descriptive cataloging at any time.
 

Present: Kerri Scannell Baunach (recorder), Spiro Shetuni, Joe Hafner, Peter Lisius, Catherine Gick, Jim Alberts (chair), Steve Yusko (LC representative), Jay Weitz (OCLC representative); absent: Matthew Wise

The subcommittee began by reconsidering a question left over from last year: whether to draft an official MLA BCC statement of best practices regarding coding the transposition/arrangement and presence/absence of parts fixed fields that were reintroduced into MARC21 with the harmonization between MARC21 and UK-MARC. While there was some question whether such a statement was necessary, it was the sense of both the subcommittee and some of the visitors present that such a statement, which would be addressed to catalogers in the United States and Canada, was advisable and would be beneficial. Both bytes should be “n” for sound recordings, as the fields are considered not applicable for this format. In the scores format, the default is blank for both transposition/arrangement and presence/absence of parts. In the absence of agreed-upon policies for the application of these fixed fields within the North American music cataloging community, it is the recommendation of this subcommittee that these defaults be adopted as MLA-recommended cataloging policy for scores and sound recordings.

Steve Yusko and Jay Weitz both gave brief reports on activities at Library of Congress and OCLC, respectively. In a question to Steve, it was clarified that while the phonogram and copyright symbols have been approved for use in MARC 21, the Library of Congress is not planning to apply them, although it will pass-through records using these symbols without editing them. The subcommittee and visitors had a lively discussion of several MARC discussion papers and proposals that have implications for the music community. Perhaps the most important of these was MARC Discussion Paper No. 2008-DP04, entitled “Encoding RDA, Resource Description and Access, in MARC  21.”  This proposal outlines numerous changes and additions to MARC 21 that will be necessitated by the introduction of RDA. RDA requires a much higher degree of granularity in physical description (or description of virtual files) than MARC 21, in which several subfields in the 260 and 300 fields are made to serve multiple functions. These will have to be broken out as separate subfields to accommodate RDA description. Also, the RDA emphasis on content type, carrier type, and media type will render the current general material designation obsolete, since the degree of descriptive information called for by RDA could not be usefully fit into the 245 field. Such issues of granularity in description arise regularly in this discussion paper; for instance, thesis information in the 502 field would have to be recorded with greater parsability than is currently the case. Also, because the RDA data elements do not carry labels, greater specificity would be necessary in such fields as the 511 and 508, with more detailed use of the 1st and 2nd indicators as a likely possibility for encoding RDA element names in such fields.

Other agenda items included a discussion of whether or not to propose an open forum on RDA and MARC for 2009, possibly as a joint program meeting with the Subcommittee on Descriptive Cataloging. It was decided that this would be premature, since RDA content will not have been finalized by MLA 2009, and aiming for 2010 would make more sense.

We also discussed several of the MARC proposals that would impact the music community, including DP2008-02, which proposes (not for the first time) making the 440 field obsolete. Several questions were raised around this issue, although most large research libraries have some type of automated series authority control that frequently performs a function similar to what the proposal suggests. One question that was raised (both at MARBI at ALA Midwinter and the Subcommittee on MARC Formats) was why the PCC (which put forward the discussion paper) wishes to change the MARC format rather than simply recommend their preferred series treatment as PCC practice. Also, although the discussion paper does not directly suggest this, the question was raised of whether 8xx fields would have to be justified by 490 fields in the record. It was pointed out that current CONSER practice and certain concepts in RDA will entail moving away from the philosophy that every added entry (or access point) would have to be justified within the bibliographic record. Currently, we can only take a wait and see approach and make further decisions (and seek more input from the music community) when this discussion paper returns as a proposal.
 

Members present: Stacey Allison-Cassin, Keith Chapman, Patty Falk, Beth Flood (chair), Neil Hughes, Lynne Jaffe, Geraldine Ostrove (LC representative), Jenn Riley, John Wagstaff. Visitors present: 14

A special thank-you goes to outgoing members Neil Hughes and Keith Chapman for their valuable contributions and time serving on this committee.

ALA report (Beth Flood)

The ALCTS Subject Analysis Committee (SAC) has formed the SAC Subcommittee on Genre/Form Implementation. The charge of the committee includes: facilitating communication between LC-CPSO and cataloging communities interested in genre/form headings, acting as an advisory body to LC in genre/form implementation, coordinating cooperative creation of genre/form authority records and retrospective conversion of topical headings (150 to 155), and developing general principles such as which subject conventions are appropriate (i.e. subdivisions) and how genre/form headings should be indexed and used in library systems. MLA subject liaison Beth Flood is a member of this committee. There is much enthusiasm from the committee for the work that MLA is and will be doing in the area of genre/form headings.

A new Library of Congress report on the pros and cons of pre/postcoordination of subject headings has been made available at: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/pre_vs_post.html.

Library of Congress report (Gerry Ostrove)

In September, LC released the first batch of genre/form authority records which were for moving images. Work is continuing in this area and now includes headings for radio terms.

LC began creating “validation records”—subject authority records for subject strings that include certain free-floating subdivisions. The goal of the project is to create records for commonly occurring valid subject strings to facilitate authorities validation in LC’s Voyager database. The records contain the 667 field, “Record generated for validation purposes.” An example of such a record is the one for “Conductors (Music) $z Germany $v Biography.”

Discussion of program Music Vocabularies and Subject Access

The Subject Access Subcommittee presented this program, which immediately preceded the business meeting. The program, which had over 75 attendees, featured four presentations: Geraldine Ostrove, speaking on genre/form implementation; a paper by Catherine Kerst (read by Gerry Ostrove) on the American Folklife Center’s Ethnographic Thesaurus; Jenn Riley speaking on controlled vocabularies and the ways library systems need to utilize them in new ways; and Stacy Allison-Cassin speaking on social tagging and its relation to library catalogs. Questions and discussion from the program carried on into this portion of the business meeting.

In terms of the genre/form project, how will automated authority vendors (LTI, Marcive, etc.) be notified? How will the new/revised authority records be distributed and how will conversion be triggered in our catalogs? These are questions for the advisory group of the music genre/form project (and other subject groups) to consider. The headings themselves will be updated in Cataloger’s Desktop and in other ways.

Regarding validation records, the general goal is that all headings will be supported by authority records, though LC will not be systematically creating headings if they are not needed. Perhaps there is a systematic way to do this, similar to the machine-derived authority records (MDAR). Headings are identified for validation if there are 50+ bib records in LC’s cataloging with that heading; using LC’s catalog instead of OCLC presumes authorized headings.

Authority records will be needed more in newer, robust systems, which will rely on controlled vocabularies. More than headings created by strict rules, these systems need relationships between headings, which involves much more effort.

An important point of social tagging is the way language is changing and relating that language to subject construction. The important thing is to determine how tagging can be used to add value. Subject thesauri are highly valued, but what about users who don’t want to use terms hierarchically? In that instance, the need is more for a thesaurus-like list of synonyms, and tagging can often be used to get lists of related terms. Is there a way to combine the contextuality of hierarchies with the related terms capability of uncontrolled tags?

Music vocabularies need to take into account geographic terms. Sources for such terms could include the Getty Thesaurus, LCSH, and Geonet. Geographic subjects, while not strictly musical in nature, are particularly important for subject access to ethnographic music materials. If a clearinghouse for music subject vocabularies is created, geographic terms need to be included. Other sources which need to be tapped are the RILM subject list, and the IAML code lists for forms/genres (047) and for musical instrumentation (048). While this list has not been made public, the committee would like to investigate it being made more widely available.

Pursuing the idea of a music subject clearinghouse, there should be a low barrier for submissions, meaning that it should be easy to add entries. There may be thesauri for instruments, forms/genres, and sociological terms, and these could be cross-listed. There are sources beyond traditional thesauri, such as Freebase and Musicbrains. Since they are created by enthusiasts, these could be good sources of popular terms in a similar way as social tagging. The most important thing in a project like this would be interoperability.

A SACO music funnel should probably operate out of MLA rather than MOUG, since it is not OCLC specific. A major advantage of having a music subject funnel will be having a point person or persons for help with the proposal process. Rather than having to go through an institutional SACO coordinator, which many institutions don't even have, individual music librarians will now be able to go to the funnel coordinator for help and guidance. Also, if the funnel is a national program run through MLA, there is more incentive for cataloger (and administrators) to recognize the value of the work. Training will be one of the best things about a music funnel, because it will give individual music catalogers who may not otherwise be able to participate a way to learn how to contribute subject terms. The advisory group for SACO would not necessarily have to follow the same model as NACO.

Implementation of Genre/Form Terms

Members of BCC and LC-CPSO subject representative Geraldine Ostrove have been in discussion about how to proceed with the genre/form project. The next steps will be determining how much of the conversion work MLA can contribute, and how much work CPSO can take on. Following that, a charge and proposal will be sent to the MLA board for approval. An advisory group will be formed to set up the project and set up guidelines and processes.

Program Ideas

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Scott Landvatter, University of Chicago

The World Music Roundtable met in Newport on Saturday, February 23, with an audience of approximately 55-60 attendees. Our first presenter was Stephanie Bonjack, Music Librarian at the University of Southern California. A practicing yogini for about five years, Stephanie spoke to us about the use of sound and music in yoga, beginning her presentation with a brief history of the yogic tradition overall. Yoga is known to be an ancient practice; carvings in the Indus Valley dating to 3,000 BCE that depict yogic poses and early textual references to yoga found in the Hindu Vedas, written down about 2,000 BCE, attest to this fact. Ms. Bonjack emphasized that yoga was initially a private study known only to ascetics living in and around the Himalayas. It was not until the 19th century that trained yogis began to teach their skills to the lay population. The earliest permanent yoga school was established in India in 1918, and the first school in the United States was created in Los Angeles in 1920. Today, most yoga classes or groups employ three types of sound. The first is the chanting of Om, an ancient mantra or chant. The second sound is produced through a type of breathing where the throat is constricted and the individual breaths exclusively through the nose. The third sound results from the chiming of tingshas and singing bowls, both instruments deriving from the practice of Tibetan Buddhism.

Stephanie next covered some of the major varieties of yoga currently seen in the United States. Bikram yoga is done in very warm studios heated to 100º F and involves 24 yogic poses and two methods of breathing. Ashtanga yoga employs advanced and physically demanding poses that, like Bikram, produce great heat. Vinyasa yoga utilizes not only sound, but recorded music that is played throughout the session. Forrest yoga makes use of highly difficult poses in order to release physical and emotional pain from the body. Kundalini yoga, which belongs to the Sikh tradition, stresses the movement of energy up from the base of the spine through the seven chakras, each chakra calling for the sounding of its own associated chant. Finally, Kirtan yoga, which is wide-spread in India as well as the United States, involves group singing of mantras and devotional songs.

Our second presenter was Spiro J. Shetuni, Associate Professor and Cataloging/Database Management Librarian at Winthrop University. Having spent many years in the study of East European ethnomusicology, Mr. Shetuni offered an informative presentation on traditional Albanian Toske music. There are four primary musical “dialects” or traditions within Albanian music: Gege, Labe, Urban, and Toske. Each of these dialects is identified with specific regions located throughout the country, and Toske, the tradition emphasized in this presentation, is concentrated within the southeastern portion of Albania. Through videotaped performances, Spiro demonstrated some of the principal characteristics of Toske music: concurrent melodic lines that are often imitative (though monophonic singing and instrumental playing also exist), arioso melodies that are more songlike than declamatory in style, and a meter that is sometimes free and unmeasured and sometimes “metro-rhythmic,” making use of beat groupings such as 7/8. Vocal music is performed by soloists as well as small choral groups and occurs a cappella as well as accompanied. The instrumental accompaniment in Toske music is generally composed of a small band of 2-5 players, with common instruments including the clarinet, flute, violin, lute, accordion, and drum. Among the most common genres of Toske vocal music are lullabies, laments, historic or legendary songs, and lyric songs such as wedding songs, love songs, and work songs. Dances are the most common type of purely instrumental music. As for modality, most Toske music is pentatonic, with scales made up of varying sequences of major seconds and minor thirds. Mr. Shetuni’s presentation was greatly enhanced by sound recordings and videos, which allowed the audience to experience a greater appreciation for traditional Toske music from Albania.

Robin Rausch, Library of Congress

After three years of superlative programming—including co-sponsoring the 2006 plenary session in Memphis with Augusta Read Thomas, and a joint session with the Archives Roundtable on women’s music archives at the 2007 meeting in Pittsburgh—the Women in Music Roundtable took a break from formal programming and enjoyed a good, old-fashioned roundtable meeting at the Newport meeting.

The small but enthusiastic group shared news of collections and projects that were of much interest to all. Four attendees are currently working on books about musical women, and one had already authored a biography so there was a great deal of sharing about research, writing, and how to find a publisher.

Among the collections brought to the attention of attendees was the Frances Herriott Sargent collection at Brown University’s John Hay Library. Sargent was stage manager for both the play Porgy and Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess, and her collection provides valuable insight into both productions. Also noted was the Ernst Victor Wolff collection at Michigan State University in East Lansing. Wolff was a highly regarded pianist who accompanied several acclaimed singers including Dorothy Maynor.

There was brief discussion about the direction of the roundtable, and whether recent programs reflected the needs and interests of MLA membership. The general consensus was that they did and appreciation was expressed that the roundtable offered a contrast to other programming. Co-chairs Sarah Dorsey and Robin Rausch noted that their terms as co-chairs would expire after the Chicago meeting and asked that anyone interested in becoming the new roundtable chair(s) contact them.
 

 
26 June–2 July 2008
ALA Annual Conference
Anaheim, CA

20-25 July 2008
IAML Annual Conference
Naples, Italy

1 September 2008
Submissions Due
MLA Newsletter no. 154

Apply Now for 2009 Awards and Grants

MLA is now accepting applications for the following 2009 awards and grants. Recipients will be announced at the MLA 2009 annual meeting in Chicago, Illinois, which will be held from February 15 to 21, 2009.
 

 
At its 2003 annual meeting, the Music Library Association announced the establishment of the Carol June Bradley Award for Historical Research in Music Librarianship. Ms. Bradley is Librarian Emeritus at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and has been the foremost historian of music librarianship. This annual award, in the amount of $1,000, will be granted to support studies that involve the history of music libraries or special collections; biographies of music librarians; studies of specific aspects of music librarianship; and studies of music library patrons' activities.

The grant will be awarded to support costs associated with the research process. These may include travel, lodging, meals, supplies, and photocopy or microfilm reproduction of source material. There are no restrictions as to applicant's age, nationality, profession, or institutional affiliation. All proposals will be reviewed entirely on the basis of merit.

Applicants should submit the following documents:

1. A summary of the project
2. A preliminary budget
3. A current vita
4. The names of three references

Within one year of receiving the award, the recipient is required to submit a report on how the funds were spent, and on the progress of the work supported. Any publication of the recipient's work must state that this award helped to support the research process.

For more information, please contact the Bradley Award Committee chair via e-mail: blough@stolaf.edu

Applications should be submitted to:

Kathy Blough
St. Olaf College Libraries
1510 St. Olaf Ave.
Northfield, MN  55057
 

 
The Dena Epstein Award for Archival and Library Research in American Music was created in 1995 through a generous gift from Morton and Dena Epstein to the Music Library Association. Requests are currently being accepted for one or more grants to be awarded for the year 2009. The amount to be awarded is $2100.

A grant may be awarded to support research in archives or libraries (both nationally and internationally) on any aspect of American music. There are no restrictions as to applicant's age, nationality, profession, or institutional affiliation. All proposals will be reviewed entirely based on merit. Awards may be presented to an individual applicant or divided among multiple applicants. At its discretion, the committee may choose not to award a grant during any particular year. An applicant who has not received an Epstein Award for the first year of application may resubmit a proposal in the two following years for any one project. An applicant may receive only one award for any one project.

Applicants must submit the following documents:

1. A brief research proposal (under 10 pages) that includes:
   1. a description of the project
   2. a detailed budget for the project, indicating:
      1. the amount of funding requested (capital purchases such as computer equipment and furniture are ineligible)
      2. justification for the funding
      3. additional sources of funding
   3. a demonstration of how the applicant's research will contribute to the study and understanding of American music.
2. A curriculum vitae of the applicant.
3. Three letters of support from librarians and/or scholars knowledgeable about American music.

The committee will accept both electronic and print submissions. If submitting by mail, please include four copies of all documents. If submitting electronically, proposals must be in Microsoft Word or PDF and be sent as e-mail attachments.

Please send the required documentation to the chair of the Dena Epstein Award Committee at the following address:

Beth Christensen, Music Librarian
Halvorson Music Library
St. Olaf College
1520 St. Olaf Avenue
Northfield, MN 55057-1098
 

 
Applications are now being accepted for the Kevin Freeman Travel Grant. The grant, established in 1994 to honor the memory of Kevin Freeman and awarded for the first time in 1997, supports attendance at the Music Library Association's annual meeting by music librarians new to the field.  Recipients receive gratis conference registration and a cash award of up to $750 for travel costs (transportation and accommodations at the convention hotel at half of the double occupancy rate, currently set at $149 for double occupancy, with state and local taxes at 15.4%).

Applicants must be members of the Music Library Association and in one of the following groups:

• in the first three years of their professional career,
• a graduate student in library school (by the time of the conference, 15-21 February 2009) aspiring to become a music librarian, OR
• a recent graduate (within one year of degree) of a graduate program in librarianship seeking a professional position as a music librarian.

Previous applicants who still qualify are welcome to reapply.

Applicants must submit the following in .pdf by July 15, 2008:

• A letter of application which includes:
• The reasons for attending the MLA Annual Conference and why you are a good candidate for this grant
• A justification of financial need
• A budget for travel costs to attend the MLA Annual Conference
• Information about any other grants, matching funds, institutional support you may also receive to cover costs to attend the MLA Annual Conference
• The number of times you have attended the national MLA meeting.
• A current vita
• Two letters of support directly mailed by recommenders (.pdf or e-mail)

Please email application and supporting materials (.pdf) to the chair of the Freeman Award Committee:

Manuel Erviti (merviti@library.berkeley.edu)

Please mark the subject line: Freeman Travel Grant Application.

For questions about the award, please contact the chair of the Freeman Award Committee at the above email address.
 

 
The Gerboth Award was established by the Music Library Association in memory of its
Past President and Honorary Member Walter Gerboth.  It is made to members of MLA
who are in the first five years of their professional library careers, to assist research-in-
progress in music or music librarianship. Eligible members are invited to apply by June
16th for next year's award. Please send the following information to the address below:

•   A description of the project and a statement about its significance.
•   A detailed total budget, specifying the amount of funding requested from MLA (to a maximum of $1,000) and its purpose (capital purchases are not eligible). Indicate any other sources of funding you may have already secured.
•   Two letters of recommendation—one for the project and one for yourself.
•   A curriculum vitae that also names additional references.

If you have any questions about the award, particularly about whether you are qualified
to apply for it, you are encouraged to contact Phil Ponella, the chair of the Gerboth Award Committee, at the address below, or via e-mail to pponella@indiana.edu.

Send applications to:

Philip Ponella
William and Gayle Cook Music Library
Indiana University, Jacobs School of Music
1201 East Third Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405-7006

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Announcing MOUG-L, the New MOUG Listserv

MOUG-L is an electronic discussion list for the dissemination of information and the discussion of issues and topics of interest to music library professionals. Postings routinely include discussion of music cataloging issues, OCLC products and services as related to music cataloging and reference work, related announcements, and information about conferences and other professional development opportunities. MOUG-L is an open discussion list; anyone may subscribe.

Originally established at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas by Cheryl Taranto, the list has served the organization as a discussion medium since 2000. In 2008 the list was moved to a new location at the University of Kentucky. For questions about the list or to report any problems with the list, please contact Kerri Scannell Baunach at kscannell@uky.edu.

To subscribe to MOUG-L:

Send an e-mail message to listserv@lsv.uky.edu with the subject line blank. In the body of your message, type ONLY the following (no signature): SUBSCRIBE MOUG-L YOUR NAME (substituting your own name; commands are not case-sensitive).

Please note: If you are currently subscribed to the old listserv, you must subscribe to the new listserv if you wish to receive MOUG-L postings. The current subscriber roster will not be migrated from the old listserv to the new one.