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Article Excerpt
Forty years ago, the late Frank Campbell, editor of Notes, needed an essay celebrating the journal's first twenty years. These were dark days for both the association and its journal: funds were short, and the vision was strong but not confident. Implicit in my assignment was the case for the journal to continue. (1) My sequel twenty years later reflected a happier time: (2) the journal was still highly respected, but the crisis that lay behind the 1962 essay had passed. For the present third essay, the news is still good: if there is a crisis at all, it is partly caused by success. (3) The editorial practices have been worked out, and special features have been added, removed, revised, or deleted in orderly and convincing fashion. The turnover in editorial staff has been continuous and inconspicuous (editorial staff are recognized in table 1 (4)). The page count put on weight, then went on a diet. Advertisers, knowing that Notes readers come to remember their names and look for their new titles, have remained steady in their support. While other timely features (as listed in table 2) have served the special needs of many readers, it is the articles and reviews that have characterized the journal.
Back in 1962 I proposed that the setting in the music world, which makes up the community of readers in the music library, was solid; but that the setting in the library world, which provides the administrative context for the music library, needed attention. In 1982 I thought the reverse was true. For this third retrospective, are there problems? Reviewing the contents of the last twenty years, and in the light of changes in the music world of today, there probably are, although they are hard to define, let alone address. Music librarians are well aware of them, and Notes is part of the answer, at least to the extent that the problem has a solution. Few of us expect things twenty years from now to be propitious in quite the same way as they are now.
Both the music world and the library world continue to spin out of control. (So what is new?) The one has seen a proliferation of writings, kinds of interests, and communities of knowledgeable readers. The other has seen a proliferation of practices for addressing technical library practices. (The music library was such a safe and happy place in the 1950s: say this to the old-timers and watch them laugh!)
Other professional organizations have also proliferated, and caught the eyes of music librarians. In music, the American Musicological Society (AMS) is still the next-door neighbor, partly because its members are our most numerous and supportive readers and contributors. But the Society for American Music (SAM), formerly the Sonneck Society, reflects a long-standing special interest of music libraries. Other music groups--the College Music Society (CMS), the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), and International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) most notably, and many other delimited groups--are in the wings. In the library world, the American Library Association (ALA, as well as its components like ACRL and PLA) has been the obvious counterpart to AMS, but its primacy is being shared with the American Society for Information Science (ASIS). Music librarians today, furthermore, often find their kindred spirits in the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres (IAML), or the Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG), the Association of Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), or even the Art Library Association of North America (ARLIS-NA). The litany of acronyms makes it clear: while Notes has many good neighbors, it lives in its own home.
The articles in Notes--in the beginning usually two per issue, averaging about ten pages each--have been the most conspicuous section of the journal. (5) A survey of the essays, arranged by broad topics to provide a scanning list of sorts, will suggest the content of the journal:
MLA Activities. The parent organization reported on its activities in a Supplement for Members between 1947 and 1964; these reports resumed in 1969 in a newsletter, which continues publication today in electronic form. (6) The association's activities often stand to benefit from the larger audience of Notes itself. Thus the most important general reports have been published in Notes, among them the final report from the association's Ad Hoc Task Force on Plan 2001 Implementation (58, no. 2 [December 2001]: 272-90), Mary Wallace Davidson's report from the Self-Study Steering Committee (53, no. 4 [June 1997]: 1092-1105), and David Lesniaski's profile of the membership (56, no. 4 [June 2000]: 894-906).
Music Librarianship in General. Other essays have addressed the music library as an institution in general. Mary Wallace Davidson wrote on the challenges of American music libraries in the nineties (50, no. 1 [September 1993]: 13-22). To celebrate the new millennium, Notes editor Richard Griscom, assisted by Amanda Maple, prepared a special issue, Music Librarianship at the Turn of the Century (56, no. 3 [March 2000]), with essays by Daniel Zager ("Collection Development and Management"), John Shepard ("Preservation"), A. Ralph Papakhian ("Cataloging"), H. Stephen Wright ("Technology"), Mary Wallace Davidson ("Copyright"), David Lasocki ("Reference"), John E. Druesedow ("Reference Sources"), Leslie Troutman ("User Education"), George Sturm ("Music Publishing"), Tom Moore ("Sound Recordings"), John and Jude Lubrano ("The Antiquarian Music Market"), R. Wayne Shoaf ("Archives"), and Jean Morrow ("Education for Music Librarianship"). (The issue was also published separately as a book by Scarecrow Press in 2000.) Diane Parr Walker further updated the plausible future in "Music in the Academic Library of Tomorrow" (59, no. 4 [June 2003]: 817-27).
History of the American Music Library Community. Carol June Bradley recalled America's early music librarians (43, no. 2 [December 1986]: 272-91), and two leaders in particular: Edward N. Waters (50, no. 2 [December 1993]: 485-501), long at the Library of Congress and eventually chief of the Music Division, also briefly an editor of Notes; and William J. Weichlein (51, no. 4 [June 1995]: 1254-59), longtime factotum of MLA. Patricia Elliott and Mark Roosa prepared a bibliography of Vincent Duckles (44, no. 2 [December 1987]: 252-58), while Danette Cook Adamson and Mimi Tashiro celebrated the...
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