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Service Spotlight (President)
Dear MLA Readers,
This is likely to be my last brief missive as MLA President, and it is an opportune moment to point out that there is very little that the President does on their own without the decision-making body that is the board of directors and the voting membership. One example of this is our recently approved initiative to subsidize conference registrations, which grew out of numerous requests voiced during the recent strategic planning process (by many of you). The board readily approved the idea, and a team, led by our Development Officer, Sara White, Lindsay Hansen Brown, former Development Officer (and coordinator of the Emergency Relief Subgroup), Web Manager Karen Berry McCool, and CFO Elizabeth Hille Cribbs, designed and launched a fundraising campaign. Please consider supporting registrants by donating to this worthy fund:
https://www.musiclibraryassoc.org/page/GeneralConferenceRegistrationFund
The MLA board recently also approved a donation of $1,000 from our Neil Ratliff (outreach) fund to support the SUCHO Equipment Fund (Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online), toward digitizing and preserving endangered cultural heritage in Ukrainian libraries, archives, and museums. We thank our colleague Anna Kijas, who serves on the SUCHO administrative team, for bringing this effort to our attention and giving us an opportunity to support this war-torn region.
Election results: As announced on MLA-L we have new board members who will rotate into service in March, at the end of MLA/TLA conference. They are:
Houman Behzadi, Member-at-Large (2023-25) – Assistant Planning Officer
Rahni Kennedy, Member-at-Large (2023-25) – Assistant Fiscal Officer
Angela Pratesi, Member-at-Large (2023-25) – Assistant Parliamentarian
Blaine Brubaker, Student/Early-Career Representative (2023-25, now a permanent voting/elected position).
MLA/TLA Annual Meeting, 2023: I am eagerly anticipating our joint annual meeting (this year with Theatre Library Association) in Saint Louis. You may have noticed a New Business Town Hall scheduled for March 4, in the afternoon at 3 pm Central, preceding a coffee break and the membership business meeting. There are several reasons for this new session: in the last few years, members have brought new business forward during the business meeting and the time we had allotted was not nearly lengthy enough to accommodate business without going into overtime. We want to keep the early evening business meeting to a reasonable length and we also want to reduce the barriers that Roberts’ Rules of Order can pose, and to provide enough time to carefully consider issues raised by our members. We’ll share meeting best practices (ground rules) in Sched. These will be less rigorous than RRO but structured, equitable, and inclusive (as is always our aspiration).
In the service of a well-considered, productive, and thoughtful meeting, please send items of new business by February 15 (to me, at lizavick [at] upenn.edu).
It has truly been a career highlight and tremendous honor to serve you as MLA’s President. The job is challenging and gratifying. To modify the movie title, “Meet Me in St. Louis” for the grand gathering of music and theatre librarians.
Sincerely,
Liza Vick, President
Service Spotlight (Recording Secretary)
As Recording Secretary, I take all the minutes for the board meetings. This includes recording the minutes for the three business meetings, the annual meeting, the monthly virtual meetings, and any pertinent email correspondence. I am in a continual cycle of taking the minutes, editing them, and distributing them. Recording and polishing the minutes requires a lot of focus and ability to clearly and concisely communicate what occurred and why so that current and future members of MLA will be able to understand the activities and actions of the organization.
I began this position in March 2022 and have found it to be both challenging and very rewarding! At the moment I am editing the Index to Board policies (found on the Board of Directors page, toward the bottom), which provides a historic record of decisions made by the board that affect policies, such as the creation of a new committee. While it’s a bit unwieldy, the Index can provide helpful information for the Board to view updated policies.
I have learned so much about how MLA operates and all the people that contribute to making it happen. I now have a deeper appreciation for anyone who has served on the board. I also have deep gratitude to the Recording Secretaries who have come before me and helped me navigate this role — especially Misti Shaw and Lisa Shiota.
Submitted by Veronica Wells
Supporting SUCHO
On October 18, 2022 the Music Library Association became a sponsor of the Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online (SUCHO) initiative with a donation of $1,000. Thanks to the generosity of the MLA, we have been able to use the donation toward a larger purchase of twenty Anker 535 PowerHouse power stations that will be distributed to cultural heritage institutions in Ukraine so they can continue to digitize and scan items from their collections even during recurring electrical outages.
Since its launch on March 1, 2022, SUCHO has brought together over 1,500 volunteers (including MLA and IAML members!) to create high-fidelity web archives of nearly 5,000 Ukrainian cultural heritage websites, amassing over 50 terabytes of data. These websites range from national archives to local museums, from 3D tours of churches to children’s art centers. The SUCHO initiative developed soon after MLA member Anna Kijas put out a call on Twitter inviting people to participate in a data rescue workshop focused on digitized music collections that were at risk following the invasion of Ukraine. We were able to web archive music-related content from a variety of institutions such as the National Folk Decorative Art Museum, whose website is no longer fully accessible, and the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine.
Since late summer, the SUCHO initiative has been working with European organizations to facilitate delivery of digitization equipment directly to Ukrainian institutions who need it so they can digitize their materials. As noted by President of the Ukrainian Library Association Oksana Brui in a recent UNESCO meeting, only about 0.6% of the cultural heritage documents in the State Archives have been digitized to date. These institutions have more than 36 million documents of cultural heritage. Thus far we have received requests from 22 institutions, including the Scientific-Research Laboratory Lviv National Music Academy, asking for a variety of equipment, hardware and software, including book cradle and flatbed scanners, computers, and cameras that will allow these institutions to digitize their valuable cultural heritage collections during the war.
We ask that you consider joining these sponsors and donate to the SUCHO equipment fund so that we can continue supporting the urgent need of Ukrainian institutions in digitizing their cultural heritage during the war.
Submitted by Anna Kijas
Five Questions with the Newsletter Editor
What’s the last book you’ve read – or piece of music you’ve performed?
Performing has been a less-regular part of my routine the past few years, but in May 2022 I had the long-awaited privilege of performing Brahms’ First Sonata for clarinet and piano with a local friend. Our first rehearsal took place in January 2020, with hopes of participating in the Performing Artists Program at Cleveland Clinic, but then Covid struck, protocols changed, and my pianist collaborator shared that he and his family would be relocating after he finished his medical residency. We made it a priority to reconnect before his departure, and while we didn’t end up performing at the Clinic, a friend offered to host us for an evening of chamber music at her home. Two-and-half years after that first rehearsal, we finally pulled things together.
What’s a topic or subject you’d like to learn more about?
There are many–on both personal and professional fronts. Among the Christmas gifts exchanged in my family (just a month ago, hard to believe!) was the complete America’s Test Kitchen cookbook, which had me thinking how great it would be to expand my culinary repertoire. Not to mention, I always enjoy learning kitchen hacks that save time.
What three foods are always in your refrigerator?
It seemed apropos to follow the previous question with an answer to this one. Cilantro, lemons, and fresh ginger root are all staples in my produce drawer–the first for garnishes, the second for extra zing wherever needed, and the third for thermos tea that I bring to work.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
After a pit orchestra performance in high school, the group’s director gave me a thank-you card that surprised me with its simple, yet profound wisdom: “Be open to what the Lord would have you do with your life.” I still have the card, and it reminds me of the eloquent words found in Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.”
Final question: What’s your favorite thing about MLA?
MLAers care deeply about finding ways to improve what they accomplish as an organization. As our president announced earlier this month, one of the reasons we’re retiring the formal newsletter is to organize strategically and strengthen communication by redirecting newsletter content to the MLA blog and social media channels. On one hand, it’s bittersweet to bid farewell to an MLA tradition. It’s also amazing to see how much technology has changed since the newsletter’s early days. The Internet fulfills a role that earlier editors could only have dreamed of — instant sharing of information that doesn’t require mailing print copy through the postal service! But even as traditions change, MLA’s role has not. We still provide a professional forum for those who support and preserve the world’s musical heritage.
Did You Know?…
…the popular Christmas tune, “Carol of the Bells”, originated as a Ukrainian folk song?
2022 marked the one-hundredth anniversary of its United States premiere, where it debuted as “Shchedryk” at New York’s Carnegie Hall on October 5, 1922. The song means ‘generous evening’ and was penned by Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych for the Ukrainian Republic Choir. According to folklore, it depicts a bird singing about a prosperous new year. Its association with Christmas began in 1936, when choral director Peter Wilhousky created an arrangement of “Shchedryk,” changing the lyrics to reflect Christmas sounds and become more accessible to English speakers.
And, in honor of MLA’s 2023 annual meeting, a bonus trivia item:
Did you know that the song ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ was written for the movie musical Meet Me in St. Louis?
Sung by actress Judy Garland, whose character tries to comfort a younger sibling as their family faces a move to New York City, the original lyrics were altered after Garland decided they were too depressing to sing to a child. Actor Tom Drake convinced producer Arthur Freed to have the composers (Ralph Blane Hunsecker and Hugh Martin) alter the lyrics rather than abandon the number altogether.
Source: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” In The Christmas Encyclopedia, by William D. Crump. 3rd ed. McFarland, 2013
photo credit: Jenna Hamra on pexels.com