Several IAML (UK & Irl) Branch members were fortunate to attend the 2024 Congress of our international organisation – “big IAML” – at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, earlier this month. Taking place in a different country each year, Congress is an exciting opportunity to hear papers from international colleagues and experts in related fields, share…
IAML (UK & IRL) is keen to find out which authorities, groups and institutions hold music performance sets and whether they are currently lending them to users or to other libraries. This will help library staff who manage interlibrary loans to know whom they can contact to request sets. It will also enable Encore21 more accurately to…
One of our colleagues has recently blogged to remind patrons that librarians in other institutions are ready and willing to help where they can. Read ‘The Library’s doing Nothing? Don’t You Believe it!’ Do you have other suggestions you could share?
Have you ever found something tucked into a library book that is really just bizarre? Here’s a Friday find from a library which shall remain nameless …
We are very sad to pass on the news that Eric Cooper died last night, at the age of 97. Some of you will remember him as he was a tremendous influence from the early days of IAML, both in the UK andinternationally, particularly in the fields of public libraries and sound recordings. You may…
Over on Facebook, there are questions! (Congress delegates might like to follow the IAML23 Cambridge FB page.) QUESTION:- Is there a recommendation for public transport in Cambridge? Are there special tickets? ANSWER:- Look out for the Universal bus too which runs between the station, West Road (where the Congress site, Gonville and Caius accomodation and…
The IAML international congress will be hosted in Cambridge this year, and the Music Libraries Trust is pleased to announce it will be providing a number of bursaries for IAML (UK & Irl) members to attend. Bursaries might be full or part depending on the number and the needs of applicants. Applications for bursaries are…
The Music Libraries Trust is now accepting applications for bursaries to attend the Cambridge 2023 IAML international congress, including funds from the Ian Ledsham bursary. This year’s IAML International Congress in Cambridge will be held from 30 July to 4 August. See the conference website for more information and booking details. As the IAML International Congress is being…
Are you an excellent music librarian, and a member of the UK & Ireland branch of IAML? A gentle reminder that nominations for the 2023 Excellence Awards need to be submitted by 31 January. If you have already submitted your nomination and have received your self-assessment form, these need to be returned by 31 March….
As most UK & Ireland Branch members will know, we are actually part of a larger international organisation, the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres. They publish Fontes, which is IAML’s international journal. If you are professionally ambitious, and/or aspire to international recognition, then Fontes is one of the key publications in our…
IAML supports the statement about music rights in Afghanistan, formulated by the International Music Council – please, see below. The declaration has recently been published on our website, among IAML’s policy statements and is in line with our endorsement of the Five Music Rights, first proclaimed by the International Music Council in 2001. IMC Statement about music rights…
Barbican Music Library’s current exhibition, Black British Dynasties in Music: A FamilyAffair, celebrates the enormous contribution made by Black British musical families to theUK’s musical and cultural scene. It is curated by the Black Music Coalition which representsBlack music executives and professionals, and was established in 2020 to challenge andraise awareness of racism affecting Black…
While the turnout for this year’s Academic Music Librarians’ Seminar might have been smaller than usual (in the end there were nine of us, from Cambridge, Cardiff, London, Manchester and Oxford), there was certainly no lack of ideas or discussion. In fact, we probably needed about another hour to really get to grips with the…
Nottingham City Council’s Loxley House turned out to be the perfect venue for the “Music in Public Libraries” seminar on Friday, 27 September, with 17 attendees travelling from locations from across from country for a lively afternoon of discussions and updates. Nigel Hawkins, Nottingham City Council’s Head of Culture and Libraries (are libraries “culture” too…?), started off…
In the latest of a series of blogs about the recent ASW – an insight into a maiden ASW from Masters student, Kirsty Morgan… Having received the Music Library Trust bursary, I was very lucky and pleased to be able to attend IAML’s Annual Study Weekend in Leicester this year – and what an amazing and…
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…
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…
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…