Insights and Essays on the Music Performance Library Edited by Russ Girsberger and Laurie Lake (review)

Abstract

Insights and Essays on the Music Performance Library. Edited by Russ Girsberger and Laurie Lake. Gales- ville, MD: Meredith Music Publica- tions, 2012. [xvi, 192 p. ISBN 9781574631760. $29.95.] Music exam- ples, illustrations, sample forms, index.Russ Girsberger, who currently serves as the librarian for the Naval School of Music in Virginia, has worked as a performance li- brarian all over the United States and has now published three books on the fine art of performance librarianship. His first pub- lication was A Manual for the Performance Library, written for Music Library Associ- ation's Basic Manual Series. This was fol- lowed by Music Performance Library, pub- lished by Meredith Music. His current offering is a unique and exciting take on the field, and it marks his second editorial collaboration with Laurie Lake, a perfor- mance librarian who currently holds the post of Reference and Electronic Resources Librarian at the Cleveland Institute of Music's Robinson Music Library. Insights and Essays is a romping field study, a fun and interesting survey of wide-ranging top- ics, and in the end, a friendly yet rigorous introduction to a field with which many music professionals, including music librar- ians in academic and public settings, may not be well acquainted.One of the initially eye-catching things about this book is the sheer amount of star power in these pages. book's opening section lists and describes the con- tributors, and it reads like a Who's Who of this small and fascinating world. Librarians from some of the most successful and rec- ognized performing arts organizations in the United States, representatives of internationally-recognized musical organi- zations, a prizewinning composer, and no- table conductors have all come together in one volume to discuss different issues and provide unique perspectives on this re- markable profession.Editors Girsberger and Lake are mem- bers of both the Music Library Association (MLA) and the Major Orchestra Li- brarians' Association (MOLA). This is worth noting because performance librari- ans tend to see themselves as doing a differ- ent job than music librarians in other set- tings (reference, cataloging, etc.) and they do not always get M.L.I.S. degrees, nor is it typical for professionals in this field to join the MLA. So, with their feet firmly planted in the seemingly disparate worlds of acade- mia and performance librarianship, Girs- berger and Lake were able to produce a terrific book by tapping into an extensive and extraordinary network of fellow profes- sionals. This work opens a window on the complex workings of the field. Inspired in- terview material and interesting publica- tions from fellow librarians not only make this a fascinating read, but a resource that can be accessed on many different levels. smoothly organized and highly com- partmentalized structure of the work makes it easy to pick and choose essays either for their perceived usefulness or just out of cu- riosity and interest, and the topics chosen will depend on the level of professional de- velopment of the particular individual. This book can certainly be read cover to cover, but in-between, there is truly something for everybody.The work is divided into five chapters, and it flows from introductory topics (chap- ters 1 and 2) to more specific topics suit- able for those at a slightly higher level of experience who might need some advice or want to read up on something in particular (chapters 3 and 4), to interesting rumina- tions that do not seem to fit in any other place and therefore are relegated to their own section (chapter 5). Chapter 1, The Variety of Performance Librarians, leads off the introductory portion, with subchap- ters comprised of nicely transcribed and edited interviews from different librarians in different performance settings. An ex- ploration of the variety of career options is an excellent introduction to this field for anyone who is perhaps acquainted with one type of performance library and is eager to learn about others, or someone who is brand new to the whole idea and is consid- ering it for the first time. …