Last week, Library Futures published Toward a New Access Paradigm: Digital Ownership for Libraries and the Public, a report on the state of digital ownership for libraries. Music libraries have been grappling with the move from physical content formats to digital formats since the early 2000s when famously, the Los Angeles Philharmonic began releasing live iTunes-only performances. Despite numerous attempts, these performances were never acquired for preservation and access by any university or public library and users must rely on having the technology and personal resources to access them through Apple platforms.  Today, libraries are also increasingly engaged in conversations

Read the latest issue of the MLA Newsletter, featuring an update from MLA’s President, spotlights on the Recording Secretary and News Editor, and information about MLA’s sponsorship of the Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online (SUCHO) initiative.

Although there are numerous tools and sources for documenting operatic performance in Western Europe, tracing performances, performers, and composers at Europe’s periphery can often be a frustrating and painstaking endeavor for researchers. Two newer databases, however, offer invaluable and efficient access to records of stage performances in Budapest and Stockholm. Opera DIGITár (henceforth DIGITár) provides comprehensive data on performance in Hungary under the auspices of the State Opera; the Operans repertoararkiv (henceforth Repertoararkiv) provides the same for performance presented by the Swedish Royal Theater in Sweden (note that although the database name refers to the opera, it also includes records

RILM seeks an Executive Assistant / Office Manager to aid the Executive Director with administrative duties and provide support to management. The successful candidate must have superior organizational skills to support and empower senior leadership. The ideal person for the job will be a proactive problem solver with exceptional communication skills and meticulous attention to detail. They will have previous experience working in an office environment, performing administrative duties and providing support to management. Knowledge of the academic, library, and/or online information arenas would be a plus. Given the changing nature of the executive landscape, we seek an individual with flexibility and foresight, while

Following is an overview of different and complementary ways to look for archival collections, particularly regarding music. Some may be familiar, but readers will hopefully find some avenues that are off their beaten paths. Archival ConsortiaArchival consortia are often organized around geographical areas, such as ArchivesWest, or Texas Archival Resources Online. The scope of collections in these consortia offers a partially overlapping Venn diagram of 1), collections that are held in a given repository in the consortium, and 2), collections concerned with the history and culture of a geographical area. They also offer pooled resources and economies of scale that

https://www.umbrasearch.org/ Archival materials of African American history and music-making are often hidden within collections that do not make the existence of these materials apparent, which complicates archival research that much more. In 2012, the University of Minnesota, in collaboration with Penumbra Theatre Company, set out to address this issue by focusing on the needs of unique needs of theater and performing arts archives. The project quickly expanded to include all cultural materials related to the African American community and resulted in Umbra Search. A powerful search tool that collates digitally available materials from over 1,000 libraries and archives across the