Libraries in Music Teaching Institutions BranchAuthor(s): Pia Schekter and Pia ShekhterSource: Fontes Artis Musicae, Vol. 57, No. 4 (October-December 2010), pp. 361-362Published by: International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres(IAML)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23512251 .

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REPORTS

fields, and documents can be reached from sev

eral entries; moreover, it can give complete in

formation about each document. The descrip tion follows both standards and practice, to

facilitate the search for non librarian users.

Recordings have been digitized and the data base contains 1128 tracks in Wav and MP3 for mat. In addition to this, the amount of files re lated to Stokowski in the database is increasing thanks to the contribution of the Stokowski Society.

The Opperby - Stokowski collection at the Royal College highlights some personal and professional aspects of Stokowski which have

been often disregarded in official biographies; interviews and rehearsals recordings reveal a

reasonable person in spite of his scary reputa tion and underline his interest in all music gen res and his continuous effort to make music

accessible to a wide audience, with particular attention to music education of the young

generation.

Closing his presentation, Rob Corp added some short considerations about Opperby's

personality, emerging from annotations and

comments on the original card catalog which

actually testify the high degree of Opperby's emotional interest on Stokowski as a musician

and a person.

The last paper was presented by Jutta

Lambrrch of the Westdeutschen Rundfunks, Köln on "The Role of a Music Archive in a

Broadcasting Company in the 21st Century: das

Musikarchiv des Westdeutschen Rundfunks

(WDR) in Köln". The presentation illustrated the principal ac

tivities of the WDR archive in more than 80 years of history of the broadcast company, from

the beginning in 1924 until the present time, mentioning the closing between 1942 and 1945 and the reopening with the new name West

deutsche Rundfunk after the war. During the first part of the presentation, photo images were accompanied by the listening of one of the

few old recordings belonging to the archive, Humperdinck's voice recorded from a disc:

indeed the development of technologies and the increasing attention to preservation have

determined the preponderance of more recent

documents in the sound archive, also because

in the first years programs were broadcasted

361

live and it was not so usual to keep and pre serve recordings.

After a description of the administrative structure of the archive, Jutta Lambrecht ex

plained its supporting role in the many WDR music activities; the WDR is the biggest public broadcast company in Germany and has six ra

dio channels and a TV channel, cooperates with

other TV broadcast companies and provides an

online channel (for further information www .wdr.de); the music library stores, preserves and takes care of all recordings of broadcasted

programs and of some rehearsals (we had the

opportunity to listen an impressive Beethoven

Symphony n. 9 where Otto Klemperer plays pi ano "coaching" the singers and the choir), but also provides scores and orchestral sets for the

three WDR Orchestras and the WDR choir, producing and preserving also printed music.

Originated from a project set up in 2002, the digitization of several hundred thousands of recordings and the storage of relative data on

electronic database began in 2004; until today 213.000 Cds have been transferred. The result

ing data are kept in two 175 terabyte servers, located in different buildings; contents can be listened free in WDR offices but they are not downloadable. Usually the music archive is not open to the public but it is accessible by ap pointment, for certified needs, to researchers

or qualified students assisted by WDR refer ence service. During the presentation was also

showed the basic operation of data entry in the

record cards of the database.

In the last times the music library is begin ning digitization of scores, but of course the

manual intervention on performing materials

cannot be substituted: in addition to the perma nent staff, the music library employs up to 25

copyists to face production needs preparing and correcting orchestral materials.

Sabina Benelli

Secretary

libraries in Music Teaching Institutions Branch

The first session of the Libraries in Music Teaching Institutions Branch took place on

Wednesday morning during the conference

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362 FONTES ARTIS MUSICAE 57/4

week. The main speaker was Johannes

Johansson, President of the European Association of Conservatoires (AEC). The Association represents more than 270 institu

tions in 55 countries. Many equivalent institu tions outside Europe are associated members.

AEC and IAML are in the process of formulat

ing a so called mutual "Memorandum of Under

standing", aimed at a collaboration to promote

higher education in music. Mr. Johansson gave a presentation of AEC

and its activities, with a special focus on the Bologna Process. Central issues like artistic re

search, learning outcomes and quality assur

ance were discussed. Mr. Johansson empha sized that artistic research is a new paradigm and not a subdivision of humanities. Biblio metrics have become increasingly important as

quality assurance indicators, but how do we

measure artistic production? This is crucial since it affects funding and it is an area where

librarians can play a significant role. The second speaker was Pia Shekhter from

the Academy of Music and Drama, University of Gothenburg. Her talk dealt with another im portant issue in connection with the Bologna

Process, namely "Information Literacy". The

Bologna agreement states that information lit

eracy is one of the "generic skills" that should

be included in the curriculum for all students.

The meaning of information literacy is, how

ever, dependent on the various traditions, meth

ods and conditions of different disciplines. This is especially noticeable, and quite problematic, for a librarian working at a music conserva

toire. Despite some uncertainty the speaker felt

optimistic about the future. She thought that the Bologna reform, the recognition of the im portance of lifelong learning and heightened competition between the seats of learning would speed up the process of using librarians as a pedagogical resource. She also believed

that the newly instigated collaboration between the Libraries in Music Teaching Institutions Branch and the European Association of Con

servatoires would be constructive.

The final speaker during the session was

Johan Eeckeloo from the Koninklijk Conserva torium in Brussels. The presentation focused

on different definitions and models of artistic research and the consequences for the music li

brary. Mr. Eeckeloo finished by quoting François-Joseph Fétis, a Belgian musicologist of the 19th century, who said: "The best possi ble library is the one that matches with the taste and the needs of its owner."

The session finished with a vivid discussion. Many people in the audience took advantage of

the opportunity to address the President of

AEC with matters of concern to them.

Pia Shekhter Chair

Public Libraries Branch

The IAML conference was organized by the

Russian national branch and was held in Mos

cow at the RAPA (the Russian Academy of Pub lic Administration under the President of the Russian Federation). This meeting was a very

special occasion for the regular attendees of the

annual conference, as most of us had not visited

the Russian Federation before. It was therefore

a wonderful first acquaintance with this very rich cultural and historical environment.

The conference program consisted of 30

sessions, with ca. 90 speakers, 30 other meet

ings and working groups. The number of atten

dees from Public Libraries was modest, with 25 colleagues (10%) of the total 258 attendees

from 40 countries.

Our first session was held on Tuesday, 29 June. Every year we try to present a session

specially dedicated to popular music, with 3

speakers who all illustrated a particular aspect in the field of popular music. The first session was entitled VOXPOP and had three papers: "The category of popular music in Russia," by Alexander Naumov (Moscow Conserva

torium); "The 'Chanson Française' (Scores & Sound Recordings) in the Médiathèque Musicale de Paris,

" presented by Anne Le Lay

(Médiathèque Musicale de Paris); and "Popular music in Japan," by Harumichi Yamada (De partment of Communication Studies, Tokyo Keizai University).

Alexander Namov told us that Russian tradi

tional music is suffering from the influence from Western popular music and, if nothing is

done about it, could slowly fade away, just as it

is doing in other countries.

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