I was so sorry not to get to the ASW this year. Luckily we had a team of excellent Twitterati who kept us fully informed of events. If you would like to know more search for #IAMLASW or browse @IAML_UK_IRL on Twitter. Tom Kearns from Kilburn Library has sent in a snapshot of the ASW. More to…
Twelve students of the Lucica Trita London Violin Academy came to the Kilburn Library Centre (part of Camden Libraries), to perform their Grade Examination pieces for Library users on Saturday March 9th. As well as solo performances, the concert concluded with a group performance of teacher and students. Proud parents were also in attendance and…
The 8th March is the 150th anniversary of the death of the famous French composer Hector Berlioz. In this letter, in the Gerald Coke Handel Collection at the Foundling Museum, Berlioz sends apologies to the flautist Jules-Antoine Demeur (husband of one of Berlioz’ favourite actresses), as he was instead going to Exeter Hall ‘to hear their famous Messiah’. Katharine Hogg, Librarian, Gerald…
In one sense, the talk I gave at the IAML (UK & Ireland) Annual Study Weekend last year (2018) could be seen as a sequel to the “Ghosts of Borrowers Past” talk, which I gave in 2016. However, it also offered me the opportunity to talk about something completely different – the tricky task of…
We had a visit on December 20th from a local school choir, (Kingsgate Primary School choir, who last delighted a library audience on Making Music Day 2018); and they entertained us to lively Christmas music. They put everyone in Christmas spirit with their marvellous singing led by their wonderful music teacher. There were spirited renditions of…
The RNCM Library easier than ever Christmas Quiz 2018 Supply the missing middle element from each group of three – some musical, some not 1. The Fellowship of the Ring __________________ The Return of the King 2. Regeneration ________________________ The Ghost Road 3. The Fourth of August ________________________ For the Fallen 4. Asie ________________________…
The Christmas season is the busiest time of the year for the Oxford University Press Music Hire Library – scores, parts, and vocal scores for carol orchestrations and Christmas music literally fly through the door. We thought we’d celebrate by making a festive film. Season’s greetings to all music library colleagues! Simon Wright Head of…
Corelli’s Christmas Concerto was so called as it bears the inscription ‘Fatto per la notte di Natale’ (‘made for the night of Christmas’). The portrait of Francesco Geminiani by Andrea Soldi, now in the Gerald Coke Handel Collection at the Foundling Museum, was painted in about 1735, depicts the composer holding a copy of the Christmas Concerto, in tribute to…
Kilburn Library was the venue for the end of term students’ concert by students from Lucica Trita Violin Academy, London. This is a fast growing local violin school run by Lucica Trita, who has amassed a vast amout of performing experience in her career. She currently performs as a violinist with BBC Symphony Orchestra and is former co-principal, Sinfonica…
Encore21 is a searchable online union catalogue of performance sets of vocal and orchestral music in UK libraries and music institutions. It is a project of IAML (UK & Irl); established with support from the British Library Co-operation and Partnership Programme and the Music Libraries Trust; hosted by Bibliotekenes IT senter AS (BIBITS) of Oslo,…
A new free exhibition at Barbican Music Library entitled Women in Jazz – a Celebration of the Past, Present and Future, a collaboration with the National Jazz Archive, presents a musical and social survey of the rich contribution women have made to jazz over the last 100 years. It also considers the talented upcoming generation who…
These days library spaces are used for all manner of events, many of which will involve the live performance of music or the playing of sound recordings. Both of these activities require a form of licence. Collective management organisations exist in order that music users don’t need to individually obtain permissions from rights holders in…
I was deeply saddened to learn that Patrick Mills had died in December last year. A delightful man who taught me all I know about music cataloguing. This little memoir really begins in 1976 (yes, that summer) when I joined the staff, fresh out of library school, of what was then the British Library Bibliographic…
Hello Music Librarians! I am writing to you today from BBE’s HQ in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. We’ve had a bit of a hectic couple of months of late, not least because in May we took on the custodianship of the National Brass Band Archive – which includes an extensive music library. The National Brass Band…
This post is a brief synopsis of my presentation at this year’s ASW on my MA dissertation research on the hybrid music library. The ‘hybrid library’ is defined as a library with a mix of traditional print collections and online resources.[1] There is also an expectation of integrated access to everything online via the OPAC.[2]…
The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that to advocate means to support, recommend, or speak in favour of a person or thing. This, I find, is a beautiful, simple and helpful definition. In the English speaking world in particular, the concept of advocacy currently tends to be interpreted as high level pro-active influencing of decision making. IAML’s international Advocacy Committee is aiming to do a bit…
Music librarians across the country took part in Make Music Day 2018, on Thursday June 21st. These were just a few of the celebrations…. Westminster Music Library joined in the world-wide celebrations with a “Learn to play mandolin” workshop; which included a brilliant performance by the London Mandolin Ensemble. Meanwhile…Camden Libraries, supported by Camden Music Service marked the day with…
Music librarians across the country took part in Make Music Day 2018, on Thursday June 21st. These were just a few of the celebrations…. Westminster Music Library joined in the world-wide celebrations with a “Learn to play mandolin” workshop; which included a brilliant performance by the London Mandolin Ensemble. Meanwhile…Camden Libraries, supported by Camden Music Service marked the day with a…
As I ease myself into my harness as IAML (UK & Irl)’s Performance Set officer, I thought I’d share some things I’ve been chewing over about the various forms of competition there are to the services we offer. Here in Birmingham, we’re quite new to charging for performance sets, having only been doing so for…
Barbican Music Library’s current exhibition is the result of a collaboration with Abbey Road Studios and acclaimed rock photographer, Jill Furmanovsky, who has been closely associated with the Studios for over four decades. Inside Abbey Road Studios: Through the Lens of Jill Furmanovsky showcases Jill’s iconic photographs from 1975, when she photographed Pink Floyd during…
I spent part of the Easter holidays in beautiful Edinburgh attending the annual IAML (pronounced Yam-ull, rhymes with camel) Annual Study Weekend. The UK and Ireland branch of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (Archives and Documentation Centres were added to make the title more inclusive in 1980, hence the earlier…
At this year’s IAML UK and Ireland Annual Study Weekend, I agreed to offer a ‘quick-fire’ session about a project that I carried out in 2017, investigating the provision of library instruction and support to distance-learners. It’s something I undertook as part of the Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Arts Education, through…
A few months ago an email appeared on the IAML list asking for articles for the latest edition of CILIP’s Catalogue and Index journal. This was going to be a particularly unusual issue in that it was going to look at items that were rather outside the usual cataloguing norms. As any music cataloguer will know,…
As any lover of The Twelve Days of Christmas (or, for that matter, William Shakespeare) will know, the festivities continue into the New Year, with the festive season officially ending on the 5th or 6th January. There is some disagreement as to which is the correct date. Both dates seem equally valid, with January 5th making Christmas…