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…
With Google now flagging plain http websites as not secure the time had obviously arrived to purchase and install a security certificate for the website. This was, by the way, a deliberate move by Google to force the issue on the multitude of websites that had not yet made the move. All URLs on the website…
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…
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…
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…
Following on from the festivities at Westminster Music Library, here’s a snapshot of what music librarians in Cambridge and Huddersfield have been up to. At Cambridge there was the usual departmental Christmas dinner along with our friends from the Chinese and Japanese departments… At Huddersfield, some clever librarians designed the ultimate cosy fire (though don’t…
Festivities have commenced at Westminster Music Library. There are drummers drumming… …pipers (ok, saxophonists, but it’s as near as we could get) piping… There was even a festive composer… With thanks to Ruth Walters, Westminster Music Library, for the photos.
The Contemporary Music Centre in Dublin has a useful catalogue of festive choral music with Irish connections, which can be viewed on its website. Ranging from unison to 8 part voices, and from the easily accessible to the challenging, there’s something here for any choir looking for something a little different for its next carol concert….
The canny librarians and archivists at ITMA (Irish Traditional Music Archive) have been busy putting together an Advent Calendar celebrating the music of Ireland. Some great surprises include performances in pubs and in ITMA’s very own reading room. There’s even an interview with the Zambian Kalingalinga Ceili Band. The current day can be viewed on…
The world is more complicated than ever and life around us seems to move at an ever faster pace, statistics show that anxiety and depression have risen by a third in just over four years – it’s clear that we are facing a significant and growing problem. Discovering new ways to target these issues present…