In this IssueJongleur
Newsletter
of the Mills Music Library
University of Wisconsin-Madison Edited by Steve Sundell with generous assistance from Geri Laudati and Ryan Sedgwick Published twice yearly in the Fall and Spring Semesters Mills Music Library 728 State Street Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1494 (608) 263-1884 music.library.wisc.edu Email Mills Music Library ______________ Web Design by Nicole Saylor |
Director's CornerGreetings! The past months have been eventful for the Music Library, as they have for everyone and the semester, which seems to have just begun, is nearly over. The Music Library lost two longstanding friends to tragic circumstances. Tributes to Curtiss Blake, whose extraordinary collection of horn recordings is a gem among the Music Library’s Special Collections; and John Gesinski, whose signature is prominent on thousands of piano scores in the Music Library, appear elsewhere in this issue. On a more positive note, the Music Library’s commissioning of compositions to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Memorial Library was a rousing success and hopefully will inspire more collaborative projects of this type between the Library and the School of Music. I had the good fortune to attend a marvelous and thought-provoking meeting in Barcelona in October. ISMIR (International Symposium on Music Information Retrieval) held its fifth annual meeting at the Audiovisual Institute, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, which must hold the distinction of being the only institution whose library is partially housed in a 19th-century edifice that served as a water reservoir. In fact, the water still sits on the roof, as its weight is integral to the building’s structure. Aside from that wondrous (and frightening) observation, sessions on query by humming, genre classification, intellectual property rights, and other issues surrounding accessing and organizing digital musical materials, were presented by a group of international computer scientists and engineers. Although the librarians among the attendees were few in number, we came away with ideas for how we might be able to utilize the research concepts to resolve the vast challenges we face as those who need to organize and structure musical data and to provide tools to search and retrieve efficiently. Along those lines, the Music Library continued to expand its options for online listening with the addition of the Naxos Music Library, which joins the Classical Music Library as our first steps into the commercial world of streaming sound. Although we do not intend to replace our course reserves with either of these services, we will be able to circumvent the knotty problems involved with authentication, as we did for the Midori residency, and to offer legal listening opportunities to those who do not have audio circulation privileges. A fuller description may be found elsewhere in this issue and easy access to both resources is available on the sidebar of our home page (http://music.library.wisc.edu). We also began development of a mini-computer lab with the addition of six workstations to Audio Facility carrels. Each workstation includes a computer with cd/dvd playback capability, a small software library of programs for word processing, and Internet access. We hope to add Finale and other music-specific software, as well as additional workstations, in the near future. Among the special activities planned for the spring are the Music Library’s participation in The Future of Folk, a symposium hosted by the Center for the Humanities; a Brittingham-funded project to digitize and make available on the internet the Music Library’s Civil War Band books; and of course, input into plans for the new music facility, which we hope will include the Music Library. Our best wishes for an easy end to the semester and a peaceful holiday season. |