50 years of Finnish public music librariesAuthor(s): Heikki PoroilaSource: Fontes Artis Musicae, Vol. 56, No. 1 (January-March 2009), p. 77Published by: International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres(IAML)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23512527 .

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CORRESPONDING EDITORS' NEWS

50 years of Finnish public music libraries

It took five decades to develop a nation wide system of public music libraries in Finland. The first music department was opened in Tampere City Library in 1958, and now, in 2008, there is a music department in almost 100 city libraries around the country.

We celebrated this development in October, in Tampere, of course, with about 100 mu sic librarians and several guests. One guest was IAML's vice president Aurika Gergeleziu, who brought us international greetings - in Finnish, of course.

The celebration started with the unveiling of a new book about the Finnish history and future of music libraries. The Hiljaisuudesta nousi musiikki (Music Arose from Silence) anthology explores the origins of our public music libraries during the twentieth century (Kari Eloranta), the status of sound recordings in public libraries (Pekka Gronow), and the possible future of our services (Heikki Poroila). There are also several personal mem ories and a section of reality library quotes from the reference desks' everyday experi ence. In addition there is a bibliography of all music and music library oriented articles in

Kirjastolehti (1919-2008), the leading Finnish library journal. English abstracts are included. The other half of our celebration was dedicated to music. We had invited three speak

ers from outside the library world to speak about the meaning of music to man. Musical editor Minna Lindgren, Dr. Susanna Välimäki, and Dr. Heikki Laitinen each took very dif ferent approaches from the status of classical music to the use music to release traumas. In the end we sang with Heikki Laitinen, whose passion for unaccompanied singing brought us back to our ancient musical roots.

Connected to this fiftieth anniversary celebration, community singing was organized in almost 20 music libraries in co-operation with F-Musiikki, the music publisher of Suuri

toivelaulukirja, an extensive series of very popular songbooks. The first volume of this se ries was published in 1976, and the latest, volume 19, appeared in 2008. Together these 19 volumes contain over 2,800 popular songs from all musical genres. The music librarians

wanted to sing these songs together with our library patrons, since this series has always been on top of our borrowers' list.

Pekka Gronow retires

Pekka Gronow, internationally-known ethnomusicologist, archivist and sound recording

researcher, and head of the Finnish Broadcasting Company sound archive has retired.

The music library community in Finland has always enjoyed working with Gronow, whose

pluralistic ideas of music library services in 1960s strongly helped develop the rich cul

tural spectrum we now can offer. Fortunately Pekka Gronow has promised to go on with

his research work, now that his retirement opens new areas for activity.

Heikki Poroila Vantaa City Library

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