MLA Visits Chicago
Navy Pier and the Chicago skyline. Photo: ©
Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau
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Music Library Association
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No. 156 |
March–April 2009 |
| MLA Visits Chicago |
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Navy Pier and the Chicago skyline. Photo: ©
Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau |
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Opening Plenary: Music in
Chicago
John Druesedow What makes a great city? For Chicago, music is likely to turn up near the top of anyone’s list of “greatness factors.” So, it was quite appropriate for the opening plenary session of MLA’s 78th Annual Meeting to cover the subject—not entirely, but surely highlighting a large part of Chicago’s musical heritage. The session was chaired by the tireless Local Arrangements Committee Chair Bob Acker, who recently retired from DePaul University. Bob introduced each of the members of the distinguished panel: Horace Maxile (from the Center for Black Music Research of Columbia College, Chicago), Chuck Sengstock (author of That Toddlin’ Town: Chicago’s White Dance Bands and Orchestras, 1900-1950), Paul Tyler (who teaches at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music), and Charles Matlock (a professional DJ and founder of Timeless Productions). Horace Maxile broke the ice with his paper, “Chicago Blues and Gospel: Innovators and Influences.” He proclaimed Chicago to be the home of urban blues and the capitol of gospel then went straight to Big Bill Broonzy, whose guitar playing and vocals were influential from the 1920s to the 1950s. Broonzy’s acoustic guitar performance of “Down in the Basement” (1928) is an early example of his solo style, while the later “Little Rooster” brings to bear a rousing ensemble. In 1930 Memphis Minnie (Lizzie Douglas) blew into town in time to engage in a guitar playing contest with Broonzy. She was among the first to adopt the electric guitar, and her rendition of “Black Rat Blues” shows a progressive, very much down-to-earth approach. Another electric guitarist, Buddy Guy, came to the fore in the late 1950s. His “Stone Crazy” ensemble number is typical of his earlier style, and the hard-driving, rock-like “She Suits Me to a Tee” pulls out all the stops. Chicago as gospel capitol has been the home of Thomas A. Dorsey, Roberta Martin, and the Thompson Community Singers (among many others). Dorsey, a blues pianist turned gospel pianist, became a major publisher of gospel music as well as a well-known composer. His gospel song, “Life Can Be Beautiful” (1940), carries an upbeat text supported instrumentally by the kind of chromatic twists that helped to define the gospel style. Martin’s “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” (arranged 1941) contains a chromatic progression in measures 7-8 (parallel 13th chords) that practically “out-gospels” the gospel style. Founded in 1948, the Thompson Community Singers became a “cutting edge choir” and performed typically with a big supporting instrumental ensemble (as in their 1989 album, “Available to You”). Charles Sengstock provided an “executive summary” for Chicago jazz, beginning with the Great African-American Migration from New Orleans about 1910 to points north and west (Chicago, Memphis, San Francisco). Chicago became a center of the relocated black population, with growth from about 40,000 souls in 1910 to about 100,000 a decade later. Why Chicago? The city was (and remains) a major transportation hub and a renowned center for music booking (going back to vaudeville), publishing, recording (many labels, including Okeh), and dance and cabaret venues. The Original Creole Band played at the Grand Theater as early as 1915. White bands appeared on the scene soon after, with Tom Brown’s Band, Stein’s Band, and the Original Dixieland Band being among the most prominent. After World War I, Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Johnny Dodds, and many others performed mostly in small ensembles. Louis Armstrong joined King Oliver in Chicago about 1922 and developed his distinctive solo sound. General trends about this time included the assimilation of the cabaret style into the broader popular culture (via the South Side theaters), the growing influence of race records, and the rise of music over the airwaves. By 1928 the migration phase was over. Earl Hines at the Grand Terrace preserved the classic style. In the post-World War II era, there were jazz “revivals” in San Francisco and Chicago, and Dixieland enjoyed a resurgence; new clubs appeared. But all this did not last. Outside of Andy’s Jazz Club, Sengstock ruefully concluded, “It’s hard to find jazz now in Chicago.” Many will automatically associate blues, gospel, and jazz with Chicago, but folk? Paul Tyler, who produced the second of the three albums of “Folksongs of Illinois” (University of Illinois Press), knows the folk scene from the inside; his association with the Old Town School of Folk Music (which got started in the late 1950s) is longstanding. In his view, folk has more to do with music making as a shared artistic expression than as a solo expression. As for Chicago’s folk roots, Tyler cited the importation of the first piano (from French Canada in the 1830s), due to the efforts of Jean Baptiste Beaubien. Other members of the Beaubien family established the fiddling tradition, which fed into the famous National Barn Dance program, inaugurated in 1924 and heard for many years over station WLS. Tyler maintains that in the nineteenth century, blacks were the first professional musicians in Chicago, with Nelson Perry being the first black violinist. About mid-century the German immigrants began to arrive. Hand-in-hand with German bands came the lovers of lager, and when threatened with Sunday blue laws (closing of the taverns), they precipitated the Lager Beer Riot of 1855. Henry Clay Work’s “Year of Jubilo,” published by Root and Cady in 1863, was echoed by Chubby Parker’s banjo rendition over WLS many years later. Another WLS star, Patsy Montana, rose to prominence in 1935 with her hit song, “I Want to Be a Cowboy Sweetheart.” Protest singers were quite visible in Chicago. Pete Seeger, Woody
Guthrie, and Mike Fleischer were among the most well known. The University
of Chicago Folk Festival was founded in 1960. And, one must not
forget the many distinctly ethnic communities—including Polish, Serbian,
Croatian, Bohemian, Irish, Asian, and more recently, Latino—who have
contributed to the general dynamism and distinct sounds of the city’s
musical culture. |
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Session Includes Preliminary
Examples of RDA Records
Hermine Vermeij, UCLA (Report on the session, “RDA in Practice,” sponsored by the Bibliographic Control Committee) Kathy Glennan introduced the session, stressing that the presenters were not working with a final document (since RDA has so far only been released in a draft PDF format), so what we would be seeing was a snapshot from today. The handouts from this presentation will eventually be available on the BCC Web site. Mark Scharff gave a very accelerated RDA update. He recapped what has happened with RDA since MLA 2008, and gave an overview of the draft of RDA that was released in November 2008. He outlined future plans (a JSC meeting in Chicago in March during which the committee will review feedback, make decisions about the 5/JSC/LC/12 follow-up documents, and finalize the text) and went over some implementation scenarios (some constituencies may adopt RDA right away, but in the U.S. a 6-month testing period spearheaded by three national libraries will precede any implementation decision). Jean Harden gave a summary of activities of the BCC Working Group on Work Records for Music. The group’s final report is available on the BCC Web site. Thinking in terms of a relational database (rather than a flat structure like the MARC record), they tried to determine what attributes of musical works should be available in a work record. The group excluded incomplete and aggregate works, as well as popular, jazz, and ethnic music, allowing that further work on these topics would need to be done by another group. They assembled lists of elements that should be included in work records always, sometimes, and in specific situations. The group found it difficult to stop thinking in terms of authority records, especially since current authority records are a mix of work and expression data. Michelle Koth provided a closer look at uniform title issues in RDA. She formulated examples using AACR2, the full draft of RDA, and the LC/12 follow-ups and responses. She stressed these differences especially: in RDA, types of composition, when cataloged by an agency cataloging in a language other than English, will be recorded in the language of the catalog. Thus, Oktetten instead of octets, rondeaus instead of rondos, and Duetten instead of duets. Titles with language additions cannot have more than one language per access point (including polyglot) in RDA, so separate access points must be created for each language. LC/12/LC follow-up suggests that cadenzas be entered under the name of the composer of the original piece, with a qualifier for the composer of the cadenza. And RDA offers an alternative to using “Selections”—creating an access point for each work. Filling the bulk of the session was a set of four presenters, each charged to create records from RDA for music materials. Damien Iseminger attempted to catalog a DVD, a filmed version of Richard Strauss’s opera Ariadne auf Naxos. He provided several handouts, including two MARC records (one cataloged using AACR2, one using RDA), a complete RDA example (showing the RDA elements and what he recorded for each), and a comparison of RDA and AACR2 in MARC. Some notable differences: RDA does not make use of the GMD, and instead breaks the information up into three parts: media type, carrier type, and content type. In RDA, brackets are only used when information is taken from outside the resource itself, not just from outside the chief source. RDA prefers the use of metric measurements, so the dimensions of a disc like a DVD is recorded in centimeters rather than inches. However, RDA offers the alternative of recording dimensions in the system of measurement preferred by the cataloging agency. RDA specifies that the creator must be recorded (i.e., a 700 personal name entry for Strauss in addition to the analytical 700 for the work). Next, Casey Mullin presented his RDA record of a score (Brahms’s complete chamber music for strings and clarinet quintet), but he took a different approach—cataloging in MODS (Metadata Object Description Schema) rather than MARC. An official RDA to MODS mapping is under development, but not yet published. The benefit of MODS is that it can describe related entries as “children” of the top level entity with fully fleshed-out “records”; it is better able to reflect the multi-dimensional nature of FRBR relationships than MARC. Daniel Paradis cataloged a sound recording in RDA—a CD of Johann Strauss’s Eine Nacht in Venedig. Like Damien, he provided the AACR2 and RDA records in MARC, with a separate RDA record showing the RDA elements. He noted that it was harder to map to ISBD/MARC than it had been to record the RDA elements. Selected comments: the preferred access point for the expression (the uniform title) includes the content type, the names of the arrangers, and the date of recording, but there is no instruction in RDA regarding the order. The place of capture and date of capture have been separated into two elements now. Relator terms ($e) in the 700s are used as relationship designators. Finally, Steve Yusko provided some examples from LC: a score, a manuscript, and a sound recording cataloged in RDA/MARC. He noted that the terminology for extent is more flexible than carrier type, and terms in common usage can be used (e.g. CD instead of sound disc). Copyright and phonogram dates in RDA are preceded by their symbols (e.g. ©) rather than “c” and “p.” And for manuscripts, a production statement, not a publication statement, is given. |
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MLA San Diego: Call for Program & Meeting Proposals Deadline, Program proposals: May 8,
2009 The 2010 Program Committee invites program proposals for its next annual meeting in San Diego, March 20–24, 2010. We welcome proposals for individual presentations or larger program sessions on topics in music librarianship, musicology, discography, and other related areas. Program proposals may be submitted directly via the web form. All program proposals must be submitted by Friday, May 8, 2009, to be considered for the 2010 meeting. You may also request a Business or other non-program meeting at this time. Please use the Business Meeting Request Form. All Business Meeting requests must be submitted by Friday, June 5, 2009. Both forms are available from the MLA Web site. To help MLA keep meeting costs down, please keep in mind the distinction between a programmatic event and a business meeting. A business meeting is a time to do the "business" of the group; its meeting space needs differ from those of the program sessions. Also, please consider having your committee, subcommittee or roundtable meet in an informal space (i.e. not a scheduled meeting room). If you are willing and it is feasible, there is room to indicate this on the Business Meeting form. San Diego should provide some informal sun-drenched options. The specifics of communicating the location of informal meeting spaces will be worked out closer to the start of the conference. Please direct any questions to the 2010 Program Committee, whose voting
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Committees Present Panel Exploring the Potential for Copyright Reform Jon Haupt, Southern Methodist University The Friday plenary session, “Copyright: Is There a Chance for Change?”, was moderated by Eric Harbeson, MLA Copyright Web Editor and member ex officio of the Legislation Committee. The panel, sponsored by the Legislation and Preservation Committees, featured three well-known experts on the subject and focused on providing a progress report for the last few years and on the potential for change in years to come. First to present was Tim Brooks, past President of ARSC and independent writer on the history of the television and record industries. His presentation, “The ARSC/MLA Copyright Reform Initiative: Making Washington Listen,” described the problem of historic sound recordings. Section 301(c) of copyright law excludes sound recordings made before February 15, 1972 from federal copyright protection, leaving them under state law until 2067. Unlike federal law, which restricts copyright protections through fair use, preservation guidelines, and copyright term limits, state laws vary with no public domain and very few limiting provisions. The jurisdiction of state law and its consequences were codified in Capitol Records, Inc. v. Naxos of America, Inc., 4 N.Y.3d 540, 560 (2005). This New York court decision finds that pre-1972 sound recordings made available electronically cannot legally be downloaded or streamed to computers in the state of New York, where there is no state statute; the court ruled essentially that common law is perpetual and absolute. State jurisdiction is determined by where the infringement takes place. The law and this recent court decision together ensure that a lot of preservation work is technically illegal. There is also a climate of fear and confusion surrounding pre-1972 sound recordings, restrictions on access, and recent discussion of “dark archives”—preservation projects that are unavailable for use. The Historic Recording Coalition for Access and Preservation (http://recordingcopyright.org/), a nonpartisan coalition, has been formed. MLA and ARSC are the first two member organizations. Their recommendations are to place recordings into federal law, harmonize our federal copyright term with other countries, legalize use of orphan works, allow use of abandoned recordings (out of print for 50-100 years) with appropriate compensation—such as a compulsory license—and finally, to permit “best practices” digital preservation. Brooks offered a timeline of MLA and ARSC activities from 2005–2009. Among the highlights were interviews with copyright reform proponents, meetings with important legislative bodies, and attaining the combined support of ALA, AMIA, IAJRC, MLA, SAM, and SAA (a total 70,000+ membership). Overall, the initiative has been met with soft support, and change does appear possible with “time, persistence, and money.” The second presentation of the morning was by Peter Hirtle, Intellectual Property Officer for the Cornell University Library, Fellow and Past President of the Society of American Archivists, and member of the Section 108 Study Group. His presentation focused on another issue of importance to librarians: “What Happened to Orphan Works in 2008—And What It Augurs for the Future.” Hirtle illuminated the problem of orphan works through the example of an unidentified photograph from 1938. Who owns the copyright? Nobody knows who holds the rights, which means that it is impossible to negotiate a license. In addition, copyright term extensions and restoration of copyright have worsened the situation. With the high cost of lawsuits and damages, creators are afraid to use anything. The 2006 Copyright Office Report on Orphan Works defines an orphan work as a work still under copyright whose owner is unknown, or whose owner is known but cannot be located. The report proposes that use of such works should be allowed as long as a reasonable search for the owner has been conducted and attribution is provided when appropriate. Orphan Works legislation has encountered a firestorm of opposition, including from several music organizations. The opposition claims that it may be too easy to “make something an orphan work.” Despite the collegial and positive attitude and efforts of library organizations supporting Orphan Works legislation, the opposition has painted those in favor of the legislation as extremists (“copyfighters”) and voiced anger over moral rights. Librarians are also concerned about “reasonable” searching for rights holders—such searches may be impractical, costly, and ineffective. Hirtle recommended countering the lies about motivation, fighting undesirable elements of the bill (such as the “notice of use database”), and focusing on the facts instead of morals. Librarians should also be ready to walk away from the whole effort if it turns too sour, focusing instead on fair use and risk assessment. Maureen Whalen, Associate General Counsel of the J. Paul Getty Trust, offered a third perspective, “Copyright: Is There a Chance for Change?” Her presentation expounded the best and worst of what has been going on (“black clouds and blue skies”). She presented a more dismal viewpoint, explaining that while progress on orphan works and historic recordings initiatives has been slow and difficult, anti-piracy bills have been passed and an intellectual property czar position instituted. Other groups are pushing to eliminate copyright law exceptions including fair use and restrict further what users can do and how they can do it. For future library projects, Whalen suggested an approach focused on permission and fair use. It is unclear what should require permission and what is acceptable without it; a consensus among the various parties with regard to permission and risk assessment would be ideal. Librarians should spell out fair use defenses in writing—i.e., what they think they are doing and why it is permissible. When asking counsel for permission to proceed, explanation of why the project is within the institution’s risk tolerance level is necessary. To secure a positive response, librarians should know the four fair use factors and the market, so they can explain the project’s impact. Whalen displayed an umbrella with black clouds on top and blue skies on the inside, aptly fitting the mood of the room. Librarians are concerned about the direction of copyright reform—with recent anti-piracy bills and a rights-holder-focused new administration—but there is also some hope for reform, particularly with regard to historic sound recordings. |
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Congratulations to the nine presenters in Chicago on their successful, interesting, and helpful poster session presentations! As usual, we had a wide range of topics covered, from training student workers to assist with original cataloging of popular music CDs to highlights from a collection of dedications to a famous cellist. Despite being located in a small room outside of the line of foot traffic, we had terrific attendance and presenters maintained high energy levels as they answered questions about their research and creative solutions to challenges. We hope to have these poster sessions available on the Internet very soon. Here is a list of the presenters and their poster session titles, in no particular order:
Submitted by Tammy Ravas, Poster Sessions Coordinator |
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Insects Don’t Drink Water
Gary W. Markham, Portland State University On Wednesday, February 18th, over 50 people were treated to a day of expertise and practical information at the 2009 MLA preconference in Chicago, titled “Preservation Basics for Music Libraries.” The preconference that was cosponsored by the MLA Preservation Committee and Education Committee was three tiered and equally sectioned into theory, practice, and even more practice. The first presenter was Janet Gertz, Ph.D., Director of the Preservation and Digital Conversion Division of Columbia University and longtime library preservation expert. Her topic was “Survey Instruments for Audio and Moving Image Collections.” She began her discussion by presenting a brief history of how sound is actually recorded and upon what media. Most important was her overview of everything that can, and will, go wrong with sound recording. The deterioration aspects figured most significantly with the inherent instability of the various formats. An emerging issue relevant to many libraries is the tracking, or the applying of preservation metadata, to various iterations of recordings and the histories of how those various iterations came about. There are now several survey and assessment tools to evaluate one’s audio collection. These include Columbia’s own Audio Visual Database (AVDb); FACET; CALIPR; and ViPIRS. The session was very informative and the assessment tools will be helpful to many participants. 
Don’t use bacon as a bookmark. Tom Teper, Associate University Libra rian for Collections and Associate Dean, Illinois Urbana-Champaign, delivered a more “analog” preservation topic, “Overview of Preservation Basics for Print Materials.” It was much more helpful than the bacon hint but one very small point that I will not soon forget is that paper is a water source for bugs: they don’t use a sippy cup. Prevention of the degradation of print materials was a main point of the session. Tom has researched a timely topic: cost benefit analysis of preventative measures as opposed to recoverative measures. For each book title approximately $135 is spent on its binding (including labor) and all other allied functions. That means the acquisition expenditure is relatively cheap and therefore back-end maintenance, or the essence of preservation and life cycle consideration, must figure into an overall budget and argued for strenuously. More technical issues covered involved the basic construction, and the investigation into the inherent frailty, of printed works. One obvious contributing factor in the potential injury of print material is their circulation, but their availability is pretty much the point. That said, we were reminded that book drops invite risks: it is possible that returned materials contain an explosive device. Less malicious opportunities for collection damage involve natural catastrophes such as the recent floods in New Orleans and Iowa City. Not only are they damaging and just downright depressing, these occurrences are very expensive and should be saved for if budget cycles allow. Again, a wealth of preservation information was gleaned from this session. Alice Carli, MLA member and Conservator for the Sibley Music Library (Eastman) directed a hands-on workshop, appropriately named “Music Scores Repair and Preservation Workshop.” The most important thing to note here is that she teaches a summer class going into detail this workshop could not accommodate. I can not even pretend to be objective: this rocked, and here’s why. Everyone was directed to tables, or progressive stations, containing tools and materials. After gathering side boards, twine, book tape, example sheets and mending tapes we were instructed to damage the example sheets (these were the insides of what we were constructing). Then we were taught how to mend the tears we just inflicted with three options: repairing tape, glue and a mending iron. This is not particularly easy or quickly accomplished. This exercise culminated in the creation of a pamphlet binder using awls, needles and twine. We were presented with many examples of score publishing that as musicians we could tell are impractical; useful solutions were presented for overcoming some of se problems. Many thanks to the Education and Preservation Committees for providing such an informative and practice-filled day. (Photo courtesy of Holling Smith-Borne) |
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The Bibliographic Control Committee (BCC) held two business meetings and presented two programs at the Chicago conference. One session centered on developments with RDA: Resource Description and Access and included sample records; presenters included Mark Scharff, Michelle Koth, Damian Iseminger, Casey Mullin, Daniel Paradis and Steve Yusko. Attendance at this program exceeded 140. The other program addressed current topics in music cataloging, which drew about 70 people. For details on these programs, please see the separate reports published elsewhere in this issue of the MLA Newsletter. The first BCC business meeting included a discussion of the work of four BCC-related groups: the BCC Working Group on Work Records for Music; the MLA/RBMS Joint Committee on Early Printed Music; the joint MLA/OLAC Playaway Cataloging Joint Task Force and the MLA/OLAC Joint Task Force on Best Practice Guidelines for SlotMusic. Jean Harden described the methodology and summarized the final report of the BCC Working Group on Work Records for Music, which completed its work in July 2008. This short-term group investigated and made recommendations on work records for music, providing a conceptual document based on the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) and Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD) models. The report serves as a foundation for further analysis of music issues in FRBR, FRAD, and RDA, especially as cataloging moves from our current environment to relational or object-oriented databases. BCC also briefly reviewed the “Areas for further study” included in the report. Nancy Lorimer summarized the latest developments with Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Music), which will be open for official review in March 2009. While the RBMS reviewer will look at clarity and consistency, MLA reviewers will need to assess the content and to provide additional examples. BCC reviewed the activities of the joint MLA/OLAC Playaway Cataloging Joint Task Force, which completed their best practices guide for use with AACR2; they have nearly completed their work on the second part of their charge: identifying how to describe Playaways using RDA. BCC also received an update on the newly formed MLA/OLAC Joint Task Force on Best Practice Guidelines for SlotMusic, which is just starting their work. With the recent creation of the Metadata Subcommittee, BCC brainstormed ideas about how to focus the work of this group and how it should interact with other parts of MLA, including other BCC subcommittees. At its second business meeting, BCC reviewed issues arising from the Authorities Subcommittee (world music issues), the Descriptive Cataloging Subcommittee (RDA-related), the MARC Formats Subcommittee (possible proposals to modify coding for chorus scores and proposing additional subfields for bibliographic field 518), and the Subject Access Subcommittee (genre/form related). For specifics, please see the separate reports from those subcommittees. The committee also brainstormed about potential programs for 2010 and beyond, including a hands-on preconference on metadata, and a preconference session on RDA implementation (2011?). Potential programs for 2010 include FRBR/FRAD, RDA update/demo, and the usual breaking issues in music cataloging. Finally, Margaret Kaus rotated off as chair of the Authorities Subcommittee after four years of service, with our thanks for her hard work. BCC welcomed Damian Iseminger as the incoming chair of this subcommittee. |
| Authorities Subcommittee Margaret Kaus, Chair |
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The business meeting took place on February 20, 2009, 12:30–2:00 p.m. Margaret Kaus announced that Robert Sherrane would be rotating off the subcommittee. Kaus thanked Robert for his participation in the Authorities Subcommittee. Kaus announced that she would be rotating off as chair of the subcommittee; Damian Iseminger will be the new incoming chair. Kaus reported on the highlights of the OLAC/CAPC and ALA ACIG meetings in Anaheim, CA (Summer 08) and Denver, CO (Midwinter 09). Full reports can be found on the BBC Web site. The subcommittee discussed whether or not to continue with the “Document on Justification for Authority Work.” Discussion among subcommittee members indicated that a statement from MLA regarding authority work was still desired. Further work on this document will take place on the BCC wiki. The subcommittee discussed future projects. There was no new business. |
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| Preservation Committee Lisa Lazar, Chair | |
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The conference began with the Preservation Committee cosponsoring an excellent preconference workshop with the Education Committee on “Preservation Basics for Music Libraries” on Wednesday, February 18th. The Preservation Committee thanks the Education Committee for their invitation to do the workshop and the tremendous assistance they provided. The Preservation Committee also cosponsored the very popular and informative plenary session “Copyright: Is There a Chance for Change?” with the Legislative Committee on Friday, February 20th. We offer our congratulations to the Legislative Committee for a great session. The committee held its business meeting on Thursday, Feb. 19th. Attendees were committee chair Lisa Lazar, committee members Denise McGiboney, Mark Puente, Alice Carli, George Blood, Sha Towers, new member Gary Markham, past members Alec McLane, Sandi-Jo Malmon, Matt Snyder, Mark Palkovic, and visitors Gary Galván, Paul Cary, and Paul Friedman. Thanks were given to members rotating off this year: Matt Snyder, Mark Palkovic, Alec McLane, and Steve Smolian. New member Gary Markham was welcomed. Those interested in chairing the Preservation Committee were asked to speak with Lisa, in that she is will end her term at 2010 meeting in San Diego. Old business discussed included Sandi-Jo Malmon’s update on the Guide to Library Binding (still not published yet; she will continue to monitor). Lisa reported on the committee’s input on NISO’s systematic review of ISO 14416:2003 (standard for binding). Based on our recommendations, the U.S. voted to “confirm with corrections.” Lisa will pursue the final results of the voting. Thanks to MLA NISO liaison Mark McKnight for soliciting our input on this vote. Alice will be sending the committee the draft of her article on preservation for the New Grove Dictionary of American Music for our review. New business discussed included an e-mail from an MLA member who discovered that her newly ordered parts were all on acidic paper. Committee members will review their new items from this publisher and more information will be gathered from the member. The chair will then compose a letter on behalf of the committee and will send to appropriate parties. Also discussed was inferior binding by another publisher. A letter was sent from an individual. That person will follow up and if no response is forthcoming we will take action. The preconference was reviewed for the committee members and thanks were given to the Board and committee volunteers. Cursory review of the evaluations indicated very positive responses and increased desire for preservation sessions was noted. Everyone was congratulated on the successful launching of the Web site. Some of the positive feedback was given and there was discussion on how more general preservation concepts could be fit in. One specific recommendation was made for disaster preparedness and names were given as resources. This will be brought to the attention of Adriana Cuervo, general resources editor. The chair discussed previous plans to announce the Web site on listservs, with Gary Markham assisting in compiling the list. A request to provide a press release for a print resource led to considering other print venues for announcement. The chair consulted the MLA Publicity Officer who gave free rein to craft a statement and offered help in providing it to other outlets. The committee established a list of electronic mailing lists and print resources to advertise the site and decided to keep the list so that updates can be announced. Gary Galván will write a press release that we will review. We will determine who subscribes to which listservs, and each will announce on those to which they belong. The Publicity Officer will be contacted for additional outlets. We revisited assignments and adjusted for updating print and beginning the audio sections. A discussion ensued about digitization and what should be covered. We discussed what the nature of digital preservation is, and that different materials can warrant different levels of preservation digitization. The purpose of the Web site is to give standards, explain options, and provide criteria for decision-making. There also was spirited discussion about the nature of metadata, the existence of general standards, the lack of specific standards, and the difficulty in creating standards since everyone has different metadata needs. It is difficult to predetermine the structure of the digitization section, since it does not parallel the other sections. We decided on having general information/basics of digitization and information on metadata. The people assigned to the digitization section will explore ideas and see what structure results, keeping in mind to address digitization for preservation, not access, and also preservation of digital materials. We decided to discuss next year’s program over e-mail and made plans for what was a very enjoyable committee dinner outing. | |
| Transitions | |
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Transitions Our best wishes to all those pursuing new opportunities.
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Please send citations for items published or premiered in the past calendar year to the column editor, Gary Boye, via e-mail or snail mail at the address below. Please follow the citation style employed below. You must be a current MLA member to submit citations. Dr. Gary R. Boye Books and Chapters Lampert, Vera (Brandeis
University) Articles and Chapters Kinney, Daniel W. (Stony Brook
University) Newcomer, Nara L. and David
W. Hursh (East
Carolina
University) Ochs, Michael (New
York) Videos | |
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Conservatories Roundtable | |
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The meeting opened Friday, February 20, 2009, with introductions of a small but lively group of attendees and continued with a reminder about the annual survey. Completed surveys are due by April 30th this year. Information is gathered each year to conduct an informal comparison of conservatory libraries. Survey results remain anonymous to protect confidentiality. And it was announced that the roundtable has been renewed until 2013. A word of thanks goes to those who took the time to write a letter of support. The group now has a wiki site that will allow for those interested to create lists of chamber music they are willing to give to other institutions. Libraries can also list parts they are missing and need to have. On the wiki site some of the navigation items are hidden under other headings, so check each link for other pages. This sparked a question related to lending individual chamber parts: should institutions lend out and barcode individual parts to chamber sets? Some schools put one person in charge of an entire set and others feel that even if you do check out individual parts, when you lose one part you still have to replace the entire set, as parts are not usually sold separately. Others encourage students to buy their own sets of chamber music if they are going to working on a piece that will become part of their repertoire. Most everyone is feeling the effects of the weakened economy. What has been happening to conservatory library budgets? Some of the smaller, independent libraries have not had any cuts to date, while larger libraries belonging to parent institutions are being asked to cut their budgets by five percent this year and ten percent next year. Some librarians have had their travel budgets cut. One library plans to reduce some of their summer hours. Budget cuts lead to a possibly untimely question regarding the procurement of additional professional staff in the library. Some ideas for obtaining new staff include keeping statistics on the rise of library use at certain hours, moving some funds from the student worker budget to the professional staff budget, finding funding outside of the library budget, and putting a student-centered focus on the important discussions with administration. One librarian’s institution will be going through a search for an Academic Dean. What kinds of questions should be asked at the interviews that will be indicative of individuals being supportive of library endeavors? One suggestion was to ask the candidates how much they have used libraries and whether they have served on a library faculty committee. Another idea was to ask about past decisions the candidates have made about libraries and whether they felt comfortable with them. How do conservatory libraries focus on information literacy and assessment as it pertains to the institutional accreditation process? Librarians should make goals for information literacy that make sense for the students’ needs in a conservatory setting. Some question whether MLA members should meet with NASM representatives to revisit some of these issues so that there is a better shared understanding of the realities of conservatory library budgets and resources. | |
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Small Academic Libraries
Roundtable |
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The Small Academic Libraries Roundtable (SALRT), Sarah Canino, Vassar
College and Joy Pile, Middlebury College, co-coordinators, met on Friday
February 20, 2009 at 11:00 a.m. in the Denver/Houston room at the Marriott
Hotel in downtown Chicago. Nineteen MLA members attended. Business of
the roundtable was discussed briefly and it was noted that after the 2010
meeting Sarah Canino would be stepping down as co-chair of the roundtable.
Interest in the co-chair position was solicited for the upcoming
term. Guided by a handout of 13 points to consider when evaluating next-generation catalogs, Sarah Canino led a session which allowed attendees to discuss areas of concern and ask questions. Attendees shared their observations and insights regarding catalogs their institutions were investigating or had committed to purchasing. Margaret Ericson, Colby College, spoke about the implementation of a shared next-generation catalog that has the combined holdings of the Colby, Bates and Bowdoin College Libraries. With a long history of various cooperative practices, the CBB libraries' next-generation catalog is a tangible result of a 2-year planning grant to implement cooperative collection development. Margaret talked about the vendor interviews, functional requirements of next-generation catalogs, the challenge of merging the holdings of the three libraries, and CBB's development of an advanced search feature in their next-generation catalog. Attendees identified a number of areas of concern regarding next-generation catalogs including lack of authority control, lack of advanced searching, the inability to refine search results and potentially problematic user-contributed reviews and tags. Although the discussion had to be abbreviated due to lack of time, it was clear that this is a topic of interest to many attendees. Joy Pile shared her findings from the recent MLA survey on LP weeding projects which she created. She articulated guidelines to consider when formulating a project, drawing upon her experiences carrying out a mandated weeding project for a collection of 1,200 phonodiscs. Our thanks go to Holly Gardinier for taking minutes for this meeting. | |
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Thomas Paul Barrick, Library of
Congress |
Laurie Lee Moses, Chicago, IL |
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17–18 April 2009 24 April 2009 30 April 2009 7–9 May 2009 5 June 2009 | |
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Atlantic Chapter Robert Follet, Peabody Institute The Atlantic Chapter of the Music Library Association met Friday and
Saturday, November 7th and 8th, hosted by the University of Virginia. In a
change from the usual procedure, the meeting opened with a tour of the
newly completed Packard Campus of the National Audio-Visual Center (NAVCC)
in Culpepper, Virginia. Located on a 45-acre campus, the center is a
state-of-the-art facility providing access to the library’s extensive
collection of films, television programs, radio broadcasts, and recordings
in all formats. The center has the mission to reformat all formats for
preservation. The large campus includes 415,000 square feet with 90 miles
of shelving for collection storage, 35 climate controlled vaults, and 124
special vaults for highly combustible nitrate film. The center also houses
a 206-seat theater which offers films and television series that are open
to the public. Next, Madelyn Wessel, Special Advisor to the University Library and Liaison to the General Counsel of the University of Virginia, offered a “Copyright Forum.” As always, the topic of copyright engendered lively discussion. Following lunch hosted by the University Libraries and served in the Music Library, the program continued with a presentation by Matthew Burtner, Assistant Professor or Composition and Computer Music at the University of Virginia, entitled “Mice in the Stacks: Digital Media Performance and the Music Library.” Buttner discussed his invention, the “metasaxophone,” an augmented computer instrument, and how libraries can be involved with interactive media. The presentation closed with a performance of one of Buttner’s interactive compositions. Joe Clark of the University of Maryland–Baltimore County discussed how he has used online tutorials both to train staff and educate patrons. After playing examples of the tutorials currently available at the library’s Web site, Clark offered a list of top ten suggestions for anyone interest in pursuing such tutorials for their own library. Richard Griscom of the University of Pennsylvania discussed the life
and work of early Philadelphia composer and bandmaster Francis Johnson
(1792-1848). The University of Pennsylvania has recently received copies
of 42 of Johnson’s compositions.
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Koth Receives MOUG’s Distinguished Service Award The Executive Board of the Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG) is honored to name Michelle “Mickey” Koth as the eighth recipient of MOUG’s Distinguished Service Award. This award was established to recognize and honor those who have made significant professional contributions to music users of OCLC. The MOUG Executive Board selects recipients based on nominations received from the MOUG membership. Koth received the award in Chicago during MOUG’s annual business meeting on February 18, 2009. Koth’s achievement lies in both her prodigious output and her commitment to supporting others through teaching, mentoring, and the creation of practical tools, all of them developed and delivered following the highest standards of excellence known to the profession. She has been a music cataloger at Yale University since 1990, but had previously been part of the Associated Music Libraries Group Title II-C retrospective conversion grant at Indiana University, where she converted over 15,000 music bibliographic records. She informally shared her experiences at a MOUG meeting in 1990, then published an article entitled “Workflow Considerations in Retrospective Conversion Projects for Scores” in the monograph Retrospective Conversion: History, Approaches, Considerations. While at Indiana, Koth became one of the first catalogers to contribute headings as part of the NACO Music Project. As a long-time independent member, she has contributed or updated over 20,000 records. Again, these contributions represent more than numbers: Her work was of the highest quality. In addition, she was instrumental in creating the NACO Music Project Handbook and still maintains its Web site today. Koth has created or published several other resources that provide valuable day-to-day aid and advice to music catalogers, non-music catalogers trying to catalog music, and reference librarians. Her extensive Web site, “Music Cataloging at Yale,” was one of the first to provide specialized information on the Web for music catalogers—though it by no means serves only catalogers—and it continues to offer a wealth of definitions, quick reference tables, and readings, all of them current and accurate. She served on MLA’s original Working Group on Types of Compositions and continues to maintain the online list. She served as MOUG Board member and Secretary/Newsletter Editor from 1998 to 2002. She has been the editor of the Music Cataloging Bulletin since 2001, and single-handedly converted it from a print publication to an online tool available to subscribers from the MLA Web site. Just last year she published a book entitled Uniform Titles for Music. Most importantly, Koth has shared tirelessly and unstintingly of her time. The music cataloging community has benefited from her music cataloging workshops over the years. She is held in the highest esteem as a trainer by her colleagues, and as the letter of nomination received by the MOUG Board stated, she have been a mentor to others who “go on to catalog at other institutions, thereby enriching the OCLC database for all music users. . . . Few people have contributed at this level.” Koth’s efforts personify MOUG’s objectives “to promote and maintain the highest standards of system usage, and to provide for continuing user education that the membership may achieve those standards.” MOUG is proud to honor her for her accomplishments. |
