New Music Librarian: Jacqueline Wilson

Jacqueline Wilson is the new music librarian at the Music Library. She has been at the SABC Music Library for 2 months.

Please tell us a little bit about yourself. (Where you grew up, where and what you studied and your work experience before you joined the SABC Music Library?)

I was born and raised in then North West in a small town called Zeerust. I started my schooling in 1997 and matriculated in 2009 from Hoërskool Zeerust. I enrolled at the University of Pretoria (Tukkies) in 2010 doing my Bachelors of Information Science. I completed my degree in 2012 and graduated in record time in 2013. My work experience started with me doing some vacation work in retail stores but for my field of study it has been at the SABC where I started my internship in the Information Library of the SABC in 2013. After completing my internship programme I had a break where I started looking for something more permanent and I successfully landed the job at the Music Library.

Tell us more about your collection and the scope of material you need to preserve.

We have a vast amount of material in our collection, where our biggest category is the orchestral collection. We then have some vocal scores, light music, chamber music, choral music and voice and piano. Everything that we have in the library is worth preserving. Some of the material we have is still in the handwriting of the composer and/or we are the only library that still have it.

Please tell us about a normal day in your office. What material do you give priority to?

My day starts at 08:00 till 16:30. I start by checking emails and if there are any queries. Currently we are looking at importing to a digital platform, so I also do some research on what other music libraries use so that we conform to a standardised form of cataloguing. Our priority now is the orchestral and vocal scores because they get requested more often by clients. We want to start ingesting them into Inmagic as it will save us a lot of time and help us being able respond promptly to clients' requests.

Do you struggle with technical difficulties, and if so, what?

So far I haven’t really experienced major technical difficulties.

If you have an anecdote about a specific piece of interesting music or musical instrument, please share it with us.

Getting to learn more about the instruments and even material is something that I cherish. The one story that always comes to mind is the Steinway Piano we have in the M1 studio. I got to learn that the piano actually has a life support system underneath it. The life support system is actually a humidity control system which keeps the piano in tune and prevents damage from climate changes. What happens is water and some form of chemical used for piano life support systems is mixed together and poured into the piano through a pipe which keeps its piano’s tune in place. This was such a fascinating discovery. And that piano is just beautiful!

Tell us why you enjoy doing the work that you do.

I love that I always learn something new every day. I love music and apart from not being that familiar with the classical music genre I am still very much open to new adventures. I also love what I do because I am able to learn how to play an instrument or two as well. 


Related post:

- The Music Librarian - SABC Media Libraries 

Blog post and questions by Karen du Toit