News Archives - IAML (UK & Irl)

Pendlebury Library Reading Room, image courtesy of MusiCB3 blog

IAML Online Event: An afternoon in Cambridge – 29th March 2023!

For music librarians, a live online event from Cambridge, UK. Find out more about music in Cambridge University Library and the Pendlebury Library.

Online Open Day at Henle Urtext Editions

A IAML colleague with their finger on the pulse, has alerted us to this forthcoming event:- Henle Urtext Editions are holding an online Open Day this Thursday, 23 March. It looks to be a very full and interesting programme. If you’re interested, you can register at: Henle Open Day (vfairs.com) The various sessions are being…

Pendlebury Item Spotlight – New Scores by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges

Mather Brown – Joseph Bologne de Saint-Georges, 1787 Despite having worked in music libraries for quite a few years, it still seems that rarely a week goes by in which I don’t come across a composer I’ve never heard of before. Recently, that composer was Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, who caught my eye not…

Volunteering Opportunity: Music Libraries Trust (Bursaries Administrator)

The Music Libraries Trust is looking for a new Bursaries Administrator to manage the bursary for the IAML (UK & Irl) Annual Study Weekend, and the Ian Ledsham bursary for the international IAML conference. The volunteer role is rewarding and offers a range of experience and networking opportunities. The role involves: Advertising the…

IAML 2022 Prague Congress

As you may know, our international organisation (‘big IAML’) is meeting in Prague this week, 24-30 July 2022. Conference Schedule – click here. If you’re curious to know what’s going on, do follow the Twitter hashtag, #IAML2022, and make sure you follow both ‘big’ IAML’s and our own Twitter accounts:- @IAML_AIBM and @IAML_UK_IRL Now is…

CILIP/IAML (UK & Irl) Memorandum of Understanding

We are very pleased to have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, and welcome the opportunity to work more closely together. We look forward a fruitful collaboration with CILIP, as we work to preserve and make available the rich musical heritage in our libraries. IAML(UK & Irl)…

Ledsham Bursary – Prague 2022

The Music Libraries Trust is accepting applications for the Ledsham bursary. The Ian Ledsham Bursary is awarded annually to a member of IAML (UK & Irl) in order to assist attendance at IAML international conferences. This year’s IAML international congress will be held in Prague, 24-28 July 2022. The preliminary programme may be found here and the…

Music Librarians Shortlist Candidates for C. B. Oldman Award

As music librarians, it goes without saying that we are specialists in terms of what goes into music libraries – and that embraces not only music, but books about it as well. The C. B. Oldman Award is a long-standing and prestigious award celebrating the best of today’s writers about music. This year we have…

True is The Dream (Barbican Music Library exhibition)

Barbican Music Library’s current exhibition, True is The Dream, showcases the photography of Derek D’Souza who, over four decades, has taken insightful images of The Jam, The Style Council, and Paul Weller. In 1981 he submitted some photographs which he had taken at The Jam’s gigs to the band’s fan club, as a result of…

St Anne's College Oxford viewed from Woodstock Road

ASW 2022 Booking Now Open! – EXPIRED

This event has now passed. After two years of online-only events, it is exciting that the Annual Study Weekend (ASW) 2022 is set to proceed in person this year. The event will take place at St Anne’s College Oxford from Friday afternoon 1st April until lunchtime on Sunday 3rd April 2022. The ASW is a…

Bursaries available for 2022 IAML (UK & Irl) ASW – EXPIRED

This opportunity has now passed.

Another Successful Seminar

The Branch’s annual Academic and Public Music Library seminars were again combined into a single event this year, on the afternoon of Wednesday 17 November. As in 2020, COVID made it more practical to organise a Zoom, rather than in-person, event, one silver lining to this continuing pandemic cloud being that attendance at the seminar…

Sourcing Performance Materials: Encore21 Re-launch

Refreshed service on a new platform IAML(UK & Ireland)’s Documentation Committee Chair, Caroline Shaw, tells us about an exciting new platform to help orchestral and choral organisations locate performing materials via UK libraries. The Encore21 Migration project Working Group is delighted to announce the launch of the refreshed Encore21 service. Encore21 is the UK’s union…

Tangerine Dream celebrated at Barbican Music Library

Barbican Music Library’s current exhibition, Tangerine Dream: Zeitraffer, celebrates the music and legacy of the pioneering German electronic band, Tangerine Dream, and showcases the remarkable musical vision of their founder, Edgar Froese. Founded in 1967 in Berlin, Tangerine Dream became one of the most important and successful bands that Germany has produced. Their influence on…

Looking Back at VASE21

IAML UK & Irl’s annual study weekend was a bit different this year: it wasn’t held on a weekend, rather it was held mid-week from the 13th-15th April, and it all took place over Zoom, which meant it was easier for attendees to dip into the sessions they were interested in without having to commit…

Learning more about music library staff and users

In summer 2020, Dr Michael Bonshor of the University of Sheffield was commissioned by the Music Libraries Trust [MLT] to carry out a survey of music library staff and users. MLT funded the bulk of the research, with additional funds for analysis of the survey data coming from the Postlethwaite Music Foundation. An Executive Summary…

A Grecian vase, with a decoration depicting women playing instruments

VASE21, and New Blog Supervisor

VASE21 (Virtual Annual Study Event 2021) As many of you will probably already know or have guessed, the Annual Study Weekend will be a bit different this year. Firstly, it will be held mid-week (13th-15th April) and will consist of online presentations and activities over Zoom. We are calling the event VASE21 (Virtual Annual Study…

New Research on Music Libraries

Many IAML (UK & Irl) members recently took part in a nationwide survey of music library staff, which was circulated alongside a widescale survey of music library service users. The survey was commissioned by the Music Libraries Trust, and carried out by Dr Michael Bonshor, a researcher from the University of Sheffield. The survey respondents…

Wanted: Encore 21 Migration Manager – EXPIRED

This opportunity has now passed.

Music, Home and Heritage – Uncovering historic house music collections

Towards the beginning of 2020, I was invited to assist a joint Royal College of Music-University of Southampton research team in their ongoing AHRC-funded project, “Music, Home and Heritage”. The project’s overarching aim is to explore “how listening to and performing music affected the construction of home and family life in Georgian Britain.” While this…

The Gerald Coke Handel Collection at the Foundling Museum

The Gerald Coke Handel Collection at the Foundling Museum comprises over 12,000 items from the eighteenth century to the present, and is a major research resource for the study of Handel and his contemporaries. Handel was a major benefactor of the Foundling Hospital, a home for children founded in 1739 by Thomas Coram, which counted…

ASWs Past and Future: a personal reflection

My diary tells me that Friday 17th April should have been the first day of the 2020 Annual Study Weekend in Leeds. Planning for the conference had taken more than a year and at the last Conference Committee meeting held on March 11th most of the final details were in place and the committee was…

Preserving our heritage, celebrating our history

Margaret Jones, blog editor for IAML (UK & Irl), asked me some time ago to write a little about the role of IAML Historian, a post to which I was appointed early in 2020. Of course I’m happy to do so. I should point out straightaway, just to avoid any confusion, that this is a…

“Music for the Terrified” in Galway!

One of the best things about the “Irl” in our Branch’s name is the opportunity that it gives us to meet our Irish colleagues. So it was with great pleasure that Geoff Thomason and I recently travelled across the Irish sea to offer Courses & Education Committee’s “Music for the Terrified” at the National University…