Although the turn of the century at Mills was not as smooth as we would have hoped, we are back on schedule and looking forward to a year of exciting projects.
As most of you know by this time, Peg Brown left her position at the end of October to return to Minneapolis, where Aaron, her husband, has a position teaching art history and Peg is overseeing an e-commerce site, working from home via the Web. Whoever said that Music Library experience was limiting? We have just begun the process to search for her replacement.
In the meantime, we are delighted to welcome Erin Augspurger as a temporary circulation and reserves supervisor. Erin holds the M.A. in English literature and has much bookstore experience, a background that has already manifested itself in an all out assault on our shelving problems. Erin will be the contact for reserves, circulation, misshelved books, and fines, etc., until further notice.
I must also express our gratitude to Amy Harrell, who so valiantly works to keep electronic reserves up and running. There is probably no other library in the country that can offer 24-48 hour turnaround time on reserves, much less electronic reserves, but Amy has enabled us to do just that. Those of you with long reserve lists and on-the-fly syllabi owe her at least a drink. Amy and Erin will work together to coordinate the reserves services.
Other digital projects and products continue to consume our time and energy. We recently mounted the New Grove Dictionary of Opera and are finalizing negotiations for the web versions of Music Index and Musical America. Several music journals are now available electronically and the number of titles in this format is growing steadily. For those who prefer working at home in their 'jammies, these are pretty exciting times.
Other activities in the works include a grant to remaster the Robert Fountain collection (see page 2), the development of an expanded sound studio, and hosting the Midwest Chapter Music Library Association annual meeting in September. We have also begun working with Kristin Martin Crosby, widow of conductor David Crosby, to transfer his collection to Mills.
Finally, through cooperation with the School of Library and Information Studies, we will offer a course on sound remastering, preservation, and digitization during the May interim semester. David Seubert, one of our graduates and the designer of our current studio, will return from the University of California, Santa Barbara to teach the first of what we hope will be a recurring course offering.
Despite these and other demands for our attention, our first priority continues to be exemplary service to you. We welcome your suggestions, comments, questions, and concerns.
On behalf of myself and the staff, I apologize for any recent lapses in service, and extend to you our best wishes for a lovely spring and a productive remainder of the semester.