Table of Contents
Message from the Chair
Spring 2023 Hybrid Meeting Notes
NEMLA Membership Renewal
EDIJ Committee Report
Nominating Committee Report
Noteworthy News
— Chris Schiff Gives Baccalaureate Address
— Marci Cohen’s New Role
NEMLA Officers
Publication Information
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Message from the Chair
Dear NEMLA,
This is the first “hello membership” message I’ve had the honor to write to any organization, and I am pleased to serve as the new Chair of NEMLA for 2023-2024. My involvement with music librarianship dates back decades by now, and, although my career path as a librarian has veered away from a purely music focus, music and music librarianship has and will remain my joy and passion. I am currently a member of the library administration team at Middlebury College, but I have maintained an active interest in music librarianship issues as co-owner of a music contract cataloging service.
First of all, a warm welcome to our incoming board members Judy Pinnolis, Associate Director, Instruction and Engagement at Berklee College of Music/The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, who is the Vice Chair/Chair Elect and Hannah Ferello, Catalog Librarian at New England Conservatory, who is our new Secretary/Treasurer.
Also, a huge thank you to the members of the Program Committee as well as our hosts at the Berklee College of Music for a successful in-person meeting this past June, our first such gathering since the pre-COVID “before times.” COVID changed everything for us, of course, and while virtual meetings are, for many reasons, valuable additions to our communal activities, human beings are social creatures and in-person interactions are crucial to our professional lives.
Finally, I would like to thank Memory Apata — our current Past-Chair — for her work over the past year, especially for her focus on ways to make NEMLA a more accessible and inclusive organization. I hope to maintain that focus during my term. Additionally, thank yous and kudos to Sandi-Jo Malmon, outgoing Past-Chair; and Carol Lubkowski, outgoing Secretary/Treasurer for their service on the NEMLA Executive Board.
Kind regards,
Terry Simpkins, NEMLA Chair
Director, Discovery and Access Services
Middlebury College
Middlebury, VT
tsimpkin@middlebury.edu
NEMLA Spring 2023 Hybrid Meeting Notes
NEMLA’s Spring 2023 hybrid meeting, graciously hosted at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, took place on Friday morning, June 2nd starting at 9:00 am, and concluding in the early evening at 5:00 pm. Thirty-three participants attended the meeting in person, and approximately 8 – 10 participants attended the meeting via Zoom. After a lovely opportunity for in-person attendees to socialize over coffee, NEMLA’s Chair, Memory Apata, gave some opening remarks and announcements, including welcoming everyone in-person and online to the Spring meeting, at 9:45 am. She also thanked Berklee and its colleagues for providing their space for hosting the meeting. She then welcomed Pablo Vargas, Dean of the Stan Getz Library and Learning Resources, who gave a brief history about how Berklee College of Music came to be the highly esteemed school of music that it is in Boston, and highlighting two other Berklee campuses –- one in Spain and the other in New York. Pablo also kindly expressed how he came to be the Stan Getz Library and Learning Resources Dean and emphasized that Berklee and the Stan Getz Library as a whole along with its wonderful community, is a great place to work. He closed by saying that he looks forward to working with others on “many amazing things.”
The morning continued with an engaging presentation from Andrea Cawelti, Ward Music Cataloger at Houghton Library, Harvard University, at 10:00 am. Andrea’s presentation introduced Rudolf Ackermann’s The Repository of the Arts. While the journal was published monthly from 1809 through 1829, Andrea’s presentation focused mainly on highlights from music reviews published between 1809 and 1816. These music reviews analyzed a number of composers’ scores for domestic music-making and made intriguing connections with events on the world stage, particularly during the concluding years of the Napoleonic Wars, and how the compositions tied into Britain’s perspective during this time. For an earlier version of the presentation, please consult the Jane Austen Society of North America: https://jasna.org/publications-2/persuasions-online/vol-42-no-1/cawelti/.
The NEMLA business meeting at 11:00 am was led by then Chair Memory Apata. Members discussed the proposed by-law changes, which had been voted on by virtual ballot prior to the meeting: 1) that new Board officer terms should begin July 1, 2) that fall NEMLA meetings should be virtual and spring meetings could be virtual, in-person, or hybrid, and 3) that voting for officers should take place virtually. A quorum was not achieved, and it was discovered that the current by-laws already include a provision for virtual elections. Members voted to rescind the ballot for further review by the Board. Comments and suggestions should be sent to the Board. At the end of the meeting, Jennifer Hunt presented Maria Jane Loizou with a bouquet to celebrate her many years as Collections Management Librarian at New England Conservatory. Her last day at NEC was May 31st, and she looks forward to devoting more time to teaching and writing.
After lunch, the afternoon schedule resumed with two rounds of two twenty-minute presentations, with a fifteen-minute break in between. The first afternoon presentation was given by Jennifer Hunt, the Associate Dean of the Library at Berklee . Jennifer’s presentation, “The Merger of The Boston Conservatory and Berklee: A Tale of Two Libraries,” took us on a methodical journey through how the Albert Alphin Library at Boston Conservatory and the Stan Getz Library at Berklee College of Music worked out the complex details of new workflows after the two institutions announced their merger seven years ago. The merger presented a number of challenges, such as how to coordinate communication between two different open-source integrated library systems, Evergreen and Koha. Some of the first projects after the merger included setting up cross circulation between the two schools, merging some of the collections, such as the classical scores, music teaching books, and all of the online resources, and establishing a unified workflow for ILL. Other positive opportunities to come out of the merger included a staff reorganization and the creation of a few new job positions that will allow library operations to run even more smoothly.
Garrett Groesbeck, a PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology, at Wesleyan University, presented next. He spoke about his in-depth research of Japanese music and how it is taught throughout higher education institutions in North America. For example, national living treasure of Japan Yamaguchi Gorō, a shakuhachi player, taught at Wesleyan in the late 1960’s. He, along with other influential figures in early North American ethnomusicology had a significant influence on the view of Japanese music in U.S. higher education today. Garrett gave a short introduction to Japanese music notation and also discussed his cataloging of Japanese scores in the Wesleyan Music Library and World Music Archives collections.
To begin the second round of presentations Kerry Masteller, Sandi-Jo Malmon and Christina Linklater, from Harvard University, spoke about a project recently launched by the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library at Harvard University, The Music in The Music of Black Americans, a digital appendix to The Music of Black Americans, the landmark book by Dr. Eileen Southern. Dr. Southern was the first Black woman to receive a tenured professorship in Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1974, three years after the first edition of The Music of Black Americans was published; the book itself is a monumental work that develops an extensive musical and cultural history of Black Americans, spanning from before the trans-Atlantic slave trade and continuing through to the mid twentieth century.
The Music in The Music of Black Americans offers the first organized, openly accessible inventory of the musical examples in the first edition of The Music of Black Americans. It provides full-text open access to the complete scores of almost all of these examples, from sources in the collections of Harvard Library and nine other institutions. An open-access project, the appendix furthers Harvard Library’s commitment to champion access and share knowledge with users around the world — The Music of Black Americans was exceedingly popular and was most recently reprinted in 2022. The site bridges the gap between musical works as they appear in the book, and as they could appear in the hands or on the screen of a composer, conductor, or musicologist today. During the presentation, Kerry, Sandi-Jo, and Christina related their experiences locating the scores and building a delivery system for them, and shared useful insights for those contemplating their own digital humanities initiatives. You can view their presentation slides here.
Patrick Quinn, the Research and Instruction Librarian at the New England Conservatory, gave the final presentation along with the other members of the Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Justice (EDIJ) Committee: Jenée Force, Yamil Suarez, and Jennifer Hadley. Patrick first explained the committee’s framework for a NEMLA statement of the organization’s commitment to combatting racism, ableism, anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiment, and hatred, and to pursuing EDIJ efforts to create a positive future for music librarianship. Patrick led the in-person and online NEMLA attendees in an informal discussion about how NEMLA and the field of music librarianship could be a more inclusive community as a whole. Both the discussion and feedback provided by the NEMLA community via this form will assist the committee in drafting a statement for the NEMLA website. (See the EDIJ Committee report below.)
During the lunch break, meeting attendees were welcomed to tour the Creative Technology Center and Immersive Technology Lab to learn about the extensive resources and training offered. After the final presentation, attendees broke into two groups to take guided tours of the Stan Getz Library and the Albert Alphin Library at Boston Conservatory. Many thanks to all the staff who led the tours. It’s always inspiring to learn from other libraries.
To cap the wonderful day, the Esli Honore Quartet, a talented Berklee ensemble led by Haitian pianist Esli Honore, performed an enjoyable concert of original compositions and standards at the reception.
Respectfully submitted,
Emily M. Colucci, Member-At-Large, NEMLA
Library Assistant, Access Services, George and Helen Ladd Library, Bates College
with contributions from Andrea Cawelti, Jennifer Hunt, Garrett Groesbeck, Christina Linklater, Patrick Quinn, and Jennifer Hadley
NEMLA Membership Renewal
A friendly reminder that membership renewals are now open on the MLA website. You are encouraged to take a moment to renew if you have not already done so. If you have any questions about renewing your membership, please contact me at hannah.ferello at necmusic.edu.
Submitted by Hannah Ferrello, NEMLA Secretary-Treasurer
Catalog and Serials Librarian, New England Conservatory
Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Justice Committee Invitation for Input
As mentioned in the meeting report, the NEMLA EDIJ committee presented a framework for an official statement on NEMLA’s EDIJ principles at the Spring meeting. This framework will be used to craft a full statement, to be approved or adapted by the NEMLA board later this summer, so this is the perfect time to add your own feedback!
Current EDIJ Framework: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MqtfVgRfrFlHiXcpxN97p0CZnrMz6d8BFFbO_239Oyw/edit?usp=sharing
Feedback Form: https://forms.gle/bHDCUN1M3WyBexLQ8
Please make sure your voice is heard in this process by contributing your ideas! The EDIJ committee is hoping this will be a truly “NEMLA-owned” statement that reflects our shared commitment to EDIJ principles. We’ve already received some wonderful responses that will help us immensely in crafting a statement. Thank you to those who have already participated in person or online!
Submitted by Patrick Quinn, Chair, EDIJ Committee
Research and Instruction Librarian, New England Conservatory
Nominating Committee Report
NEMLA is looking for leaders! There are several vacant positions which need to be filled. If you are interested in nominating yourself or another NEMLA member for the following roles, please contact the Chair of the Nominating Committee at memory.r.apata@dartmouth.edu.
Vacant Volunteer/Chair-Appointed Positions:
- Nominating Committee Members (2 or more new members)
- Chapter Archivist
- Chair, Technical Services Committee
- Chair, Instruction Committee
Submitted by Memory Apata (she/her) Music and Performing Arts Librarian
Dartmouth College
Noteworthy News
Chris Schiff Gives Bates’ Baccalaureate Address
This past May, the Bates College Class of 2023 selected Chris Schiff, Music and Arts Librarian, as their baccalaureate speaker, or as the college chaplain Rev. Brittany Longsdorf explained in introducing him, the person they would most like to give them advice on the eve of their graduation. Students described Chris as a “mythical wise wizard, like Gandalf the Grey,” while Longsdorf praised his “wisdom on how to research, structure, and write about the arts and music” and his “boundless tender heart in helping students as they sift through challenging subject matter.” You can read the full story in the Bates News, and watch the video of his heartfelt speech, “Drink the wave.”
Chris shared his thoughts about the experience:
While my heart will always be in music and the performing arts, in the last few years I have been called upon to serve as the bibliographer and research librarian for disciplines across the humanities. I count these years as the most productive and personally rewarding of my career!
I came to the attention of this particular class through a research seminar which combined Africana, American Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Religion. It took place on my very first face-to-face day after dispersal. I found the topic of our research – civil rights pioneer Pauli Murray – to be exciting and I was NOT afraid to show it! The students and their professor responded in kind, because we were all – at that point – starved for close and personal communication. That single library session set the tone for the next two years, and I worked with many of those same students on their Senior Thesis. When it came time to choose a speaker, one of the Religious Studies students that I had helped asked me if she could nominate me. I didn’t hesitate to accept. I knew that – although I have been in academia off and on since 1976 – I had finally found my graduating class!
Congratulations, Chris!
Marci Cohen’s New Role
Marci Cohen has moved into a new role in Boston University Libraries. Previously the Assistant Head of the Music Library, she is now Head of Research Services for Instruction and Consultation.
NEMLA Officers
Publication Information
New England Quarter Notes is published quarterly in the fall, winter, spring, and summer.
Back issues may be accessed from:
http://nemla.musiclibraryassoc.org/resources/newsletters/
Address all correspondence concerning editorial matters to:
Jennifer Hadley
jthom at wesleyan.edu
Inquiries concerning subscription, membership and change of address should be directed to:
Hannah Ferello
hannah.ferello at necmusic.edu
Membership year runs July 1st to June 30th.
Regular Personal Membership:$12.00
Student and Retired Membership:$6.00
Institutional Membership$16.00
Return to the New England Music Library Association home page.