Welcome to a new academic year!
We begin the semester once again without a permanent Access and Digital Services Librarian. The search has been extended and we hope to fill the position by Christmas. In the meantime, we are very fortunate to have Charles Schneider, whom most of you know as a doctoral student and former teaching assistant in theory, to manage the audio facility, course reserves, and circulation. Charles has always been a model library user and we've tried to hire him as an assistant for the past year. This time. he accepted our offer and started just in time to train for a few days with Erin Augspurger, whose LTE position ended on 1 September. Amy Harrell will continue her excellent work with electronic reserves. She and Charles will together coordinate the reserves programs.
Alinda Nelson is now in the Music Library full time, joining Steve Sundell and me as the only permanent staff in the unit. Alinda will oversee all technical processing of materials, including acquisitions and preservation, and will assist with collection development. In order to more efficiently channel requests for new materials to the order department, please send all requests to her attention.
Mark Rosa, who worked half time in Mills for the past four years, finished his project appointment in June. Mark is now working in Technical Services creating journal patterns for checkin on Voyager, our no-longer-new system. His work will help enable some automated processes, such as claiming of serials, which we cannot yet do. In the event that you notice missing journal issues, please let us know. Until we recover fully from the system change, we appreciate help in identifying problems.
Finally, Melba Jesudason, who has been on a year's appointment to the Music Library following a successful career at College Library, will be leaving in October. Melba has been a great help on the reference desk, preparing guides and generally lending a hand where she is needed. Please stop by to wish her well before she leaves for possibly yet a new career.
Despite staff comings and goings, the Music Library had a surprisingly productive summer.
We were most fortunate to sponsor a course on media reformatting and preservation, offered through the School of Library and Information Studies during the first summer session. David Seubert, who helped develop our studio while he was a student here, was given release time from his current position as Curator of Special Collection in the Performing Arts Library at University of California-Santa Barbara, to teach the course. The eleven students who took the course gave it rave reviews and those of our student staff who audited it, increased their skills. We hope to be able to offer the course every other summer and to attract dance and music students as well as librarians and archivists from other institutions.
Much progress was made on the Robert Fountain Archives project. John Moraites worked to transfer analog tapes to DAT, editing as he progressed, and completed over seventy hours of music. Although we thought this would be a relatively easy task, nearly all of the open reel tapes had to be baked in order for the sonic content to be captured. After relying on WHA's oven for our previous projects, we decided to buy our own using funds from the grant. I'm sure the Brittingham folks are wondering what exactly it is that we are doing...
During the summer also, we completed transfer of the extensive library of Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra conductor David Crosby to Mills. Working closely with David's widow Kristen Martin, over 200 boxes of scores, books, and recordings were moved to the Music Library. We hope to have a commemoration during the academic year.
In the area of collection development, several acquisitions require special mention. Eight hundred sixty compact discs on the Document label-their entire catalog to date-were added to the collection after spending time in the customs office this June. Document's mission to re-release every blues, gospel, and spiritual recording made between the late 19th century, when the first recordings of Afro-Americans were made and the early forties, has been nearly accomplished. Document has also begun to produce the complete recorded works of musicians from the genre of vintage country music. The recordings are accompanied by full text transcriptions of each song, something that will be of great use to researchers. These recordings will take some time to catalog fully but should begin to appear in MadCat as "in process" shortly.
An important collection of Yiddish sheet music bought on Ebay (highlighted in an article by Irv Saposnik) was supplemented by another group of sheets and 78 rpm recordings acquired in July. And of course we continue to acquire important electronic resources as they become available.
We recently expanded the parameters of our score approval plans and began a new compact disc plan. These programs are intended to supply the library with new materials as they are published, based on a library developed profile. We are process of publishing our composer and publisher profiles on the Music Library home page and welcome your input.
After a year's hiatus, we were able to resume production of our recent acquisitions lists. They are updated monthly and are available on our website at www.library/libraries/Music/rescoll/recacq.htm. If you would prefer that we send you each update by email, please notify Alinda Nelson.
Among the Music Library projects on the horizon, looming most immediate is the Midwest Chapter Music Library Association annual conference, which we will host 28-30 September. We are looking forward to a turnout of approximately 75 music librarians and are hoping also to attract students who may be considering a career in music librarianship.
Despite other exciting projects to numerous to mention, our primary mission continues to be providing excellent service to the needs of our patrons. On behalf of a harried crew, I extend our usual wishes for a good semester. We'll be delighted to work with you on whatever your library requirements and hope to see you often.