A Spring Meeting in San Diego

This time of year is really just about my favorite. The corn is nearly all harvested, so I can actually see across the fields I pass every day coming to and from work. The days grow shorter and I start thinking about everything I need to do in preparation for the upcoming holidays. To-do lists include things like order the turkey, buy the cranberries, start looking ahead to the spring semester in the library, and so on.

And then it hits me: Register for MLA! But it’s so far away! Not till next March!! Yes, that’s true, we are meeting a few weeks later than normal, but the registration dates are still pretty much the same. You need to put this at the top of your to-do list, too, if you haven’t registered yet. Registration rates are the same as last year, we’re going to be in a lovely resort setting, and the program offerings are really exciting.  Program Chair Diane Steinhaus and her committee have put together a fantastic program. Ken Calkins and the Local Arrangements gang are also working hard to put together great sight-seeing and other opportunities.

By now, you’ve also been made aware that we are trying a different GREEN model for meeting registration by putting the conference “packet” online instead of mailing out a thick packet of paper. Now I will admit that I do miss seeing that packet in the mail, rifling through all the different colored sheets of paper, but the savings to the association make me miss it a lot less.

Speaking of mail, thanks to everyone who returned ballots for this year’s election, which garnered the best return of ballots in recent history, nearly 56% (685 ballots mailed, 381 returned). Thanks to your participation in the voting process, Treasurer/Executive Secretary Michael Rogan will be travelling to a so far undisclosed location to collect a very generous donation from that anonymous MLAer who pledged $1 for every returned, valid vote!

This time of year is also when many of us pause to acknowledge those people and things for which we are thankful. Thinking of MLA, there is a great deal about which I am thankful, like the giving and welcoming spirit of MLAers who make any first-timer feel like one of the family by the end of the opening reception on the first night of the annual conference; the nearly 300 members of MLA who are part of the administrative structure (there’s always room for more!); the chapters that do so much to support the profession as well as the association. As Past President Phil Vandermeer stated in his Presidential column in issue 151 of this newsletter, “I am convinced that MLA chapters are the greenhouses for the grass roots of MLA.” I couldn’t agree more.

I’m also thankful for the opportunity to work with a hard-working group of colleagues on the Board of Directors. Serving MLA at the board level is a responsibility none of us take lightly. Leaving the board in March are Members-at-Large Paul Cary, Lois Kuyper-Rushing and Nancy Lorimer, Recording Secretary Karen Little, and Past President Phil Vandermeer. They all have my sincere thanks for their counsel, hard work, and good humor.

Finally, I am thankful for the opportunity to serve as MLA’s President. It has allowed me the opportunity to work with and get better acquainted with so many of you. That is a true pleasure and honor.

Don’t forget to register soon for the San Diego meeting! March 2010 will be here before we know it!

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Come Enjoy the Conference in Paradise

Ken Calkins
Chair, Local Arrangements

The Southern California Chapter extends a warm invitation to San Diego for MLA’s 79th Annual Meeting. San Diego is California’s second largest city with a wealth of cultural and scenic attractions. And it’s second to nowhere in the country for a pleasant year-round climate. Most days the only difference between being inside and outdoors is the fresh air and sunshine.

Our conference hotel, the Paradise Point Resort & Spa, is on Mission Bay in the heart of San Diego. This is a lovely and distinctive setting that will add to the excitement of our program. Picture yourself surrounded by tropical landscaping, beaches, and horizon views. You can enjoy California sun and scenery even in-between your guest room and the meeting rooms.

The nearby neighborhoods are coastal enclaves with that true “endless summer” vibe. Mission Beach is home to the historic Giant Dipper roller coaster, surfer hangouts, and a classic boardwalk. Next up the coast is Pacific Beach, with boutique shopping as well as grocery stores and a variety of destination restaurants. Together these neighborhoods offer many meal choices for a range of budgets.

Downtown San Diego is also flourishing. It’s only a 10–15 minute taxi ride from the hotel, or accessible via city bus and trolley. The Gaslamp Quarter is one of the largest historic districts in the country, sixteen city blocks of restored buildings alive with great restaurants, stores, and music clubs. This district is also walking distance to the symphony or opera. The Embarcadero district features the Maritime Museum, and Seaport Village is another popular downtown area for food and shopping anytime.

Most of the city’s museums are in Balboa Park, one of the world’s great urban parks. Whether you are interested in art, airplanes, automobiles, or anthropology, there is something for everyone among these fourteen museums. Several of them are magnificent Spanish Colonial Revival buildings, originally constructed for the 1915–1916 Panama-California Exposition. It’s also home to the world famous zoo and various botanical gardens. And music too—the Spreckels Organ Pavilion is the world’s largest outdoor organ.
 

The Local Arrangements Committee is pleased to offer three pre-conference tours on Sunday, March 21, from 1:00–5:00 p.m. Tour no. 1 is “Scenic San Diego by Land and Sea,” a tour of city highlights including the Gaslamp Quarter, a stopover in Balboa Park, and a boat tour of San Diego Bay. The second option is a “Coronado Walking Tour” to see the island home of the famous Victorian hotel and other historic architecture and spectacular views. Tour no. 3 is the “Balboa Park Attractions Shuttle,” round trip transportation from the hotel to the park attractions mentioned above, all within walking distance of each other, to choose at your leisure. Please see the Tours page of the conference Web site for details.

We’ve also prepared a “Things to Do in San Diego!” guide. Among the options for music are a free concert at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion on Sunday afternoon, and a San Diego Opera matinee downtown. The Ballet Folklórico de México is in town Sunday evening. Our guide also lists a range of theater events, clubs, and favorite restaurants.

Back at the hotel, the MLA Big Band will perform at the cocktail hour before the closing banquet on Wednesday evening. Then after the banquet it’s Latin Jazz from trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos and his band for your dancing pleasure!

Come and enjoy the conference in paradise!

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San Diego Program Diverse with a California Flavor

Diane Steinhaus
Chair, Program Committee

The program for MLA’s annual meeting in San Diego will pay tribute to the diverse music scene in California and the Mexican border area, while also offering sessions on emerging technologies, collection building, and a full range of musical topics. Despite the change in the starting day for the conference—the opening reception will take place Sunday evening and the banquet on Wednesday evening—events will follow their “normal” sequence.

The opening plenary session, “Music Across the Border: California and Mexico,” is sponsored by the Local Arrangements Committee, and will feature a distinguished panel of guests exploring the transnational music culture between northwestern Mexico and southern California. Helena Simonett (Vanderbilt University) will trace the region’s traditional banda (brass band) music to the technobanda phenomenon popularized in Los Angeles; Alejandro Madrid (University of Illinois at Chicago) will explore borders and boundaries manifested in the nortec dance music of Tijuana; and Tom Diamant (Arhoolie Foundation) will talk about the Strachwitz Frontera Collection of over 130,000 Mexican and Mexican-American recordings that are being digitized in partnership with UCLA.

The regional theme will continue with presentations on saxophonist and all-girl band leader Peggy Gilbert and music in UCLA’s Performing Arts Special Collections. Our second plenary session will highlight the lives of four extraordinary women in the musical life of California. Entitled “Wish They All Could Be… California Women” and sponsored by the Women in Music Roundtable, a panel of MLA members will talk about composer Mildred Couper, composer, activist, and teacher Vahdah Olcott-Bickford, pianist and arts patron Ruth Slenczynska, and philanthropist Betty Freeman.

Several sessions will focus on collection development issues. The Resource Sharing and Collection Development Committee (RSCD) will sponsor a session sure to elicit a lively discussion: “Score Approval Plans: Are They Still Useful in Challenging Economic Times?” The RSCD Committee and the World Music Roundtable are co-sponsoring a session devoted to different aspects of selecting world music materials, and the Education Committee’s Outreach Program will present a “train the trainer” workshop on basic world music collection development.

A wide array of technical services-related topics will be presented this year as well. The Technical Services Roundtable is sponsoring a presentation highlighting the work-saving features of MarcEdit freeware, entitled “MarcEdit: How Did I Ever Live Without It?” The Bibliographic Control Committee is sponsoring several sessions: “FRBR, FRAD, and Music: Theory and Practice” will explore the compatibility of these conceptual models with music, especially non-western music; the “BCC Town Hall” returns, as does an update on RDA implementation; and BCC will offer a session discussing different models for creating metadata workflows for digital projects.

Members interested in library instruction and services will also have plenty to interest them. The Instruction Subcommittee is sponsoring two sessions, one on applying general curriculum literacy objectives to the music classroom/studio and one presenting a mini-course designed to update graduate students’ research skills. The Education Outreach Program will sponsor a session on a distance learning music librarianship course. And in “Non-Music E-Resources: Goldmines for Music Research,” sponsored by the Reference Sources Subcommittee, there will be two presentations related to using general e-resources to find music materials: searching American historical newspaper databases for music information, and finding music dissertations in ProQuest Dissertations and other similar databases, as well as a presentation on how librarians’ informal relationships with potential clients (like advising a student group, performing in a community organization, etc.) can lead to professional interactions. The Reference Sources Subcommittee will also bring us a panel discussion of “Music Library Webpages as Portals of Information.” There will also be member-proposed presentations on library sources for performance practice questions and on how to get the most out of searching in RILM.

Conference goers interested in new trends in libraries will enjoy a session called, “A Match Made in Heaven: Merging Emerging Technical and Public Services,” sponsored by the Emerging Technologies and Services Committee, that will be packed with discussions of the latest tools currently being explored by libraries: cloud computing, Aardvark, LibraryElf, PDA-related services, digital music notation data models, and more. The Small Academic Libraries Roundtable will present a session on various new discovery catalog interfaces such as WorldCat Local, Endeca, Encore, and Koha in “Discovery Tools or NextGen Catalogs: How Does Music Fit In?” And a member-proposed session will assess how libraries support the arts in Second Life.

Issues related to our organization will be addressed in several sessions. Over breakfast, President Ruthann McTyre will lead a discussion on the possibility of IAML-US moving under the MLA umbrella as an Affiliate to MLA. A member-proposed session will present findings from a recent study updating and expanding the survey of MLA personnel characteristics. And another member-proposed presentation will showcase the new MLA Web site that is under development.

The diversity of topics covered in the program should capture everyone’s interest: from an assessment of the current state of archival collections in music libraries, to the role of the librarian in musicians’ health; from the future of publishing bio-bibliographies and thematic catalogs, to a discussion of the Carnegie Corporation’s program in the 1930s to provide music materials to colleges. Whether you work in technical services or public services, in any kind of music library setting, you will find plenty of interesting sessions to attend.

If you are entering the job market there will be plenty of activities to support your search. The Placement Service Desk and the Résumé and Cover Letter Review Service will be available throughout the conference and the Career Development and Services Committee is sponsoring a session entitled “Putting Your Best Foot Forward: Successful Navigation of the Job Interview.”

Rounding out the program are the winners of the Best of Chapters competition, this year from the New York State/Ontario and Southeast Chapters; the ever-popular Hot Topics and Poster Sessions, both sponsored by the Education Committee, and much more.

New members of MLA and first-time attendees to the conference won’t want to miss the New Members Forum and Buffet scheduled just before the Opening Reception on Sunday evening. Watch MLA-L for more details about the conference as the dates get closer and be sure to check out all that the Local Arrangements Committee has planned for us on the conference Web site on the MLA home page. We look forward to seeing you in San Diego for the 2010 MLA Annual Meeting!

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Do You Need a Roommate for the Annual Meeting?  

You can use the roommate clearinghouse to locate others who are also looking for roommates.  

What we need to know:

Who you are and how you can be reached
Any or all of the following, as you prefer:

• e-mail address
• home phone number
• work phone number
• fax number

Specific Roommate Information
Dates for which you need a roommate, and any other info which is important to you, such as the following (any, all, other, none):

• you're a smoker/non-smoker and prefer/need to room with the same;
• you're willing to consider a triple (or not);
• you can't share with someone who snores, wears perfume, etc.

Also, if you already have a room booked, either at the conference hotel or elsewhere, let us know that, too.

You can send this information to Jane Nowakowski:
--by e-mail at nowakows@rider.edu
--by fax at work: 609-497-0243
--by phone at work: 609-921-7100 ext. 8305

In return, you'll receive a list of others who are also seeking roommates from which you can make your own arrangements. No one chooses a roommate for you.

Dan Boomhower, Supervisory Librarian, Library of Congress, Library Services (Collections and Services, Music Division, Reader Services Section)
Jessica Mirasol, Archivist for Music Collections, Old Dominion University
Misti Shaw, Newsletter Editor, Music Library Association
Thomas Walker, Music Cataloging Librarian (Part-Time), Old Dominion University

Member News
Carolyn Dow (Polley Music Librarian, Lincoln City Libraries) received the Promotional Award for outstanding marketing and promotion of a special library from the Nebraska Library Association’s Special and Institutional Section at the association’s fall conference. She was also elected Vice Chair/Chair Elect of the Special and Institutional Section.

Bracken Klar, Tulsa, OK
Alison Leonhardt, Syracuse, NY
Stephanie Lewin-Lane, Bay View, WI
Kyle L. McCarrell, Camden, SC
Stacey Lynn Miller, Bloomington, IN
Zachary Ott, La Valle, WI
Anna Pranger, Bloomington, IN
Catherine Claire Rominger, Denton, TX
Jane Sandberg, Oberlin, OH
Gregory Sigman, Athens, OH
Dean Forrest Smith, New York, NY
Carrie Anne Stubblefield, Chapel Hill, NC
Karin Lisa Suni, Kansas City, MO

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Developing Trends

Jim Cassaro
MLA Development Officer

There has been a flurry of development activity since my last column. At its September meeting, the MLA Board of Directors approved a proposal to establish a giving circle, The Orpheus Society, for those members who wish to make major donations over a period of time. Donations to the Orpheus Society can be targeted toward any of MLA’s existing funds—the MLA Fund, the RILM Endowment Fund, the Awards Funds (e.g., Gerboth; Publications; Freeman)—or can be unrestricted and used wherever the need is greatest. The society recognizes the generosity of individual MLA members who can donate annually at a significant level, or who wish to pledge donations to be made over a given period of time. There are two levels of membership in the society: the Founder's Level (gifts of $1,000 and above) and the President's Level (gifts of $500 to $999). In recognition of their generosity to the association, Founder’s Level members are invited to the donors recognition reception with the MLA President during any given annual conference, and will be acknowledged during the business meeting at the annual conference, and on the MLA Web site, while President’s Level members are invited to the donors recognition reception with the MLA President during any given annual conference, and are acknowledged on the MLA Web site. Implementation of this initiative is scheduled for the fiscal year 2010–11 membership renewal cycle.

We are also looking to establish a “10 Creative Ways of Giving” program for the association. Many of our generous donors may want to have their funds cover the cost of something specific in the annual MLA operating or conference budgets, but do not necessarily know how much these items cost. This program will help our donors to focus their giving to a particular initiative outside of those we already offer, and as such, will allow the association to do bigger and better things. Look for a list of such giving opportunities in a future Newsletter column, and on the Development Committee’s page on the MLA Web site, now in development.

There are other initiatives coming down the pike, most notable the potential establishment of an MLA/ARL Diversity and Inclusion Grant which will offer scholarships to library school students who wish to be professional music librarians. Working with ARL’s Diversity Officer, Mark Puente, the two organizations are working on an application to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to provide the grant money for the initial scholarships. If successful, the first grants would be made in 2011. Stay tuned for more exciting news to come!

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The Music Library Association is seeking an Assistant Convention Manager/Convention Manager. The term of service will begin 1 July 2010. Initial appointment is one year, with reappointment possible up to a total of four years. The first two years are spent as Assistant Convention Manager; the third and fourth years are spent as Convention Manager.

Position Description: The Convention Manager (CM) and Assistant Convention Manager (ACM) are authorized by the President and the Board to coordinate and oversee the planning of national conventions of the association. The ACM accompanies the CM on site inspection/hotel negotiation trips and manages all facets of exhibits and advertising for the convention. The CM oversees all convention details and is responsible for onsite management of national conventions. The CM serves as liaison between the Program Committee chair, the chair of the Local Arrangements Committee and its budget officer, the Publicity Officer, the chair of the Education Committee (if a pre-conference workshop is being planned), the Treasurer/Executive Secretary and the Board. The CM negotiates with hotels for future conventions, signs contracts (countersigned by the President) to secure accommodations for meeting and sleeping rooms and makes all solicitations and arrangements concerning exhibitors whose publications, products and services are displayed at conventions. The position demands heavy involvement, especially in the early fall when the Convention Budget is prepared and exhibitors/advertisers are solicited, and during the two months prior to the annual convention, with lesser involvement throughout the year.
 
Specific Duties: ACM duties include: solicitation of exhibitors and program advertisers for the annual convention, maintaining a master list of exhibitors/ advertisers, and overseeing all aspects of exhibits for the convention. This includes communications/negotiations with decorating/drayage firms, security firms, and telephone/internet/electrical services, and on-site management of the exhibit area during the convention. The ACM also is responsible for conference signage. The ACM works closely with the CM, consulting whenever necessary to become familiar with the duties and responsibilities of the position. In addition, the ACM is responsible for maintaining, revising and updating MLA’s Convention Manual, in consultation with the CM.
 
CM duties include: site inspection, reporting findings/recommendations to the Board, and hotel contract negotiations, communications with the hotel’s sales staff, coordination of the work of the Program Committee and Local Arrangements Committee, assigning meeting rooms; communications with the hotel’s catering/banquet service, the A-V service, the photocopy service, and other services as necessary. The CM prepares the convention budget, working with the Program Committee and the Local Arrangements Committee, and attends the fall meeting of the MLA Board. The CM has final responsibility for on-site management of all facets of the convention, reports to the membership at the annual convention on recent, current and future national conventions, and confirms and submits all bills to the MLA Treasurer/Executive Secretary.
 
Qualifications: Five years’ experience as a music librarian; membership in the Music Library Association, with good understanding of its organizational and annual convention structure; administrative experience with good organizational and management skills; ability to set and meet deadlines; budgeting experience; effective communication skills in person, on the phone and in writing; availability for business trips of 2-3 days duration 3-5 times per year; availability to attend all annual conventions for a full week; good computer skills including word processing software and spreadsheet management with access to a high quality printer, internet access, fax machine, and electronic mail. Skills in database management software and availability of institutional support are highly desirable.
 
Deadline: January 15, 2010

Benefits: The CM and ACM receive support for expenses required to carry out the responsibilities of the position (travel, telephone, postage, etc.) and honoraria. Honoraria are determined annually by the Board of Directors.
 
Duration of Appointment: The ACM’s term begins July 1 of the specified year (2010 for the current search). Initial appointment is one year, with reappointment possible up to a total of four years. The first two years are spent as ACM; the third and fourth years are spent as CM.

Application: Send letter of application, résumé, and names and contact information for three professional references via mail or e-mail to:

Nancy Nuzzo
University at Buffalo
Music Library
112 Baird Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260-4750
(nuzzo@buffalo.edu)

Interviews will be held at the annual conference in San Diego. Members of the search committee are: Nancy Nuzzo, chair; Leslie Bennett (lbennett@uoregon.edu), and James Zychowicz (James.Zychowicz@areditions.com). Recommendations for candidacy are welcome and may be sent to any member of the search committee.

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From the Editor . . .

Over the last seven-plus years I have had the pleasure of editing the MLA Newsletter. It has been a joy working with librarians from across the country to produce this publication. In the process, I have learned a great deal about MLA and its members, and about editing. It is a unique opportunity, and I thank the association for trusting me with the responsibility. And I thank the good folks at A-R Editions for their quality work and invaluable assistance in producing the newsletter.

Above all, I thank all those who have helped me produce these past 30 issues. MLA is a professional association, but it is also at its heart a volunteer organization, and the amount of work and talent that members contribute never fails to amaze me. The newsletter is a direct reflection of that talent and dedication.

With the next issue, Misti Shaw will take over as editor of the newsletter. She brings impressive skills to the position, and I look forward to seeing the newsletter continue under her leadership. But she will not be alone in this new position; Misti will have all of us supporting her and helping her, as I have been helped over the years.  

It’s been an honor.

Steve Mantz
Outgoing Newsletter Editor

Southeast Chapter

John Druesedow
Chair, SEMLA

The 38th annual meeting of the Southeast Chapter (SEMLA), sponsored by Loyola University in New Orleans, was held jointly with the Texas Chapter on 8–10 October 2009. Braving somewhat higher than normal temperatures and a few drizzles, members experienced wonderful New-Orleans-style hospitality and a stellar array of programs. Here are some of the highlights (much greater detail on the program will be provided by Chris Durman for the January issue of SEMLA’s online newsletter, Breve Notes). A gourmet reception in Loyola’s Monroe Library, where most of the conference sessions were held, was the lead-off event; again, for the reception, the chapter must acknowledge the gracious sponsorship of Dana Jaunzemis at MLSC, based in Wilmington, NC.

Morning and afternoon programs on Friday the 9th covered a wide spectrum of subjects, including a music manuscript from New Orleans (Mark McKnight), interviews of pianists (Jean Wald), the creation and editing of player piano rolls (Alan Wallace), the current state of music in New Orleans (Bruce Raeburn and Matthew Sakakeeny), a tour of the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane (Bruce Raeburn), and a sobering account of the restoration of Tulane’s Music Library after Katrina (Lisa Hooper). On Friday evening a splendid banquet was held at the Palace Café on Canal Street. On Saturday morning Sarah Dorsey spoke about the greening of Greensboro, i.e., the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Roberta Ford gave an account of her continuing education experiences in Oxford, England, and Nashville, TN (Vanderbilt); and Gary Boye provided a first-person narrative about his discovery of Tui St. George, an almost unknown composer who lived on the outskirts of Boone, NC. 

The final event of the conference was the business meeting, at which the first two recipients of the Pauline Shaw Bayne Travel Grant, Jacob Schuab (Vanderbilt) and Kyle McCarrell (the University of South Carolina at Columbia), were introduced. Holling Smith-Borne (Vanderbilt) has been chosen to present his paper on an ethnomusicological recording project in Uganda at the upcoming national MLA meeting in San Diego. Reports on archives (Ashley Conway), the Oral History Project (Jenny Colvin), outreach (Renée McBride), and business matters (Scott Phinney) were received. The pre-conference was judged a success (Grover Baker), and applause for the program (Chris Durman) was loud and sustained. Alicia Hansen, as the guiding force behind local arrangements for this conference, was warmly acknowledged. Election results were announced: Gary Boye becomes the newest member of the SEMLA Executive Board as Member-at-Large, and Scott Phinney was re-elected as Secretary-Treasurer. Anna Neal, as outgoing chair of SEMLA, thanked present and past members of the Executive Board who served during her term, and handed the gavel (actually a plastic hammer) over to John Druesedow, who begins a two-year term as chair.

Future SEMLA meetings will be held as follows:

• University of South Carolina, Columbia (14–16 October)
• University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; 40th annual meeting
• University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
• Vanderbilt University, Nashville, in preparation for the national MLA meeting there in 2014

Soon after the conference, it was announced the Grover Baker would succeed John Leslie as editor of Breve Notes.

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We appreciate our Corporate Patrons and Corporate Members and their support of MLA.  

Corporate Patrons
American Institute of Musicology
A-R Editions Inc.
ejazzlines/Jazz Lines Distribution
Harrassowitz
J.W. Pepper & Son Inc.
OMI - Old Manuscripts & Incunabula
Theodore Front Musical Literature Inc.

Corporate Members
aaa Music Hunter Distributing Company
Alexander Street Press
Broude Brothers Limited
G. Schirmer Inc/Associated Music Publishers Inc
Harmonie Park Press
Music Library Service Company
New World Records
Preservation Technologies

15–19 January 2010
ALA Midwinter Meeting
Boston

21–24 March 2010
MLA Annual Meeting
San Diego

9 April 2010
MLA Newsletter no.160
Submissions Due

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