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…
Purpose Earlier in the year IAML (UK & Irl) hosted a discussion session on music-related digital provision in public libraries. We were delighted to welcome twenty-one attendees from a variety of sectors, including representation from eight public libraries. Running the session on Zoom was also a great opportunity to receive input from a number of…
Earlier this year CILIP announced the launch of the “Working Internationally” project. The two year Arts Council funded project aims to promote relevant, accessible and valuable international collaboration for public libraries in England. The programme runs from May 2019 to December 2020 in partnership with the British Library and the British Council, and aims to…
“It’s Monday morning, and you’re faced with 30 sceptical 13-year-olds.” So begins Helen Wallace’s article on Ten Pieces II in this month’s BBC Music magazine, describing a scene assuredly all-too-familiar to many a secondary school music teacher. Music – and, in particular, classical music – is indeed subject to scepticism, disdain and even ridicule by…
Last Thursday, the staff of Westminster Music Library marked one hundred years of women in transport with a commemorative First World War-themed sing-along. In partnership with London Transport Museum and their Battle Bus project, we sang our way through a variety of songs from the Great War era, setting the scene for a fascinating insight into…
Throughout the ASW we had “Reports and information” sessions. These were a great opportunity to see a snapshot of life in music libraries around the country. They ranged from more academic discussions to some really fun projects reaching out to the wider community. There were prizes; there were, if not tears, some very glum faces…
A new initiative has recently been launched which may be of particular interest to music researchers not affiliated to academic institutions. Access to Research is a two year pilot running to January 2016 which provides free walk-in access to 1.5 million academic articles from a wide range of publications in participating public libraries across the…