Some impressions concerning recent developments in music libraries in colleges and universities

Abstract

The organization of music librarians as a professional group dates back 1931 when the Music Library Association was founded. It now has a membership of more than 1000 individual institutional members. The purposes of the Music Library Association are to promote the establishment, growth and use of music libraries and collections of music and musical literature in the United States and Canada; initiate and encourage studies aiming improve the organization, administration and contents of such libraries and in pursuance of these aims co-operate with other organizations in related fields. The Music Library Association is affiliated with the American Library Association and the American Musicological Society. It is a member of the National Music Council and the Council of the National Library Association and publishes an extremely useful and scholarly journal under the title Notes. Various studies reveal that the trend of establishing Music Libraries in the departments of our universities and colleges has been largely an activity of the last decade. This trend partially fills a need for making available an adequate collection of research and reference materials for the graduate student. The brief study described in the following paragraphs was undertaken during September, 1948, in an effort make a comparison of more recently established music libraries in certain representative colleges and universities. It was conducted for the purpose of contributing the comprehensive planning for the development of the Music Library of George Peabody College for Teachers. The method of investigation for this study involved a four-week tour of the libraries mentioned in Table I given with this report, followed by questionnaires verify and supplement information obtained on the visit.