What we do

The UK & Ireland Branch of IAML – the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres – represents and promotes the interests of music librarians, libraries, music–related archives and music information providers throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Personal members of the Branch work in public and academic libraries, with professional orchestras, in broadcasting authorities and in the music trade. Institutional members of the Branch include: public, academic and national libraries, professional orchestras, opera companies, broadcasting authorities and the music trade.

Membership of IAML can be as an individual or an institution. IAML covers a wide range of institutions that include: public, academic and national libraries, professional orchestras, opera companies, broadcasting authorities and the music trade.

Professor Jan Smaczny, Hamilton Harty Professor of Music at Queen’s University, Belfast as Chair of the Excellence in Music Libraries awards committee summed up the importance of the sector when he said

The roster of excellence before us shows, more powerfully than any words of mine, that the very musical infrastructure of the United Kingdom and Ireland depends fundamentally on the work of music librarians.

We have four outward-facing committees that engage with the the concerns of the profession: the Communications Committee, Documentation Committee, Events & Training Committee, and Trade & Copyright Committee.