Musings in the music library - "Librarians are nice"

by Daniel Neal
Cape Philharmonic Orchestra Library

Another vignette from the music librarian.

I've got two relations who are very successful professional academic librarians.  They are very nice people.  The nicest person I knew at Eastman School of Music was the head of  Sibley Music Library.  The kid next door where I grew up became a big deal librarian in Indianapolis Public Library system.  He too is a very nice man.  

And every professional librarian I’ve had any communication since becoming Librarian of the CPO has been a very nice person.  

AND… they’re all very smart.  

Interesting that in the early 21st century being nice is almost a curse…certainly taken for a sign of weakness in our oh so competitive world.  

You can imagine the extremes of the Tea Party movement in US politics deriding librarians as blood sucking parasites embedded in the bloated bureaucracy of the civil service.  Generally I guess our reaction would be to smile and ask “and what can I do for you today?”  

What else would we say?  We’re, by nature, nice people!

Related posts:

Musings in the music library #7 - Librarian stereotypes

Musings in the music library #6 - Cape Philharmonic Orchestra Library

Musings in the music library #5 - Copyright

Musings in the Music Library #6 - Cape Philharmonic Orchestra Library

The last in a series of vignettes which were sent by a fellow librarian, Daniel Neal from the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra Library in a mail to the SABC Music Library and the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra Library.

"In the old days, orchestra libraries were there first and foremost to supply Their Orchestra with the materials required.  All other orchestras were viewed with deep suspicion and mistrust, and educational and amateur organizations with outright anathema.  

These deep feelings had practical roots beyond personal spites and jealousies: lost parts, horrible indelible markings and long term amnesia regarding return of material do not make life easy nor do they assist in looking after what is a very valuable investment.  

But times change, and the modern age in South Africa has now established a new attitude:  all these libraries were funded by public money and their collections should be open to all worthy users.  That has included the University orchestras and the few and valiant amateur orchestras, but the main benefactors from this Library have been the East Cape Phil in PE and the Free State Symphony in Bloemfontein,, occasional but professional institutions that don’t have libraries at all.  

The rental fee from this Library is unchanged from 20 years ago, and so the cost is within the budgets of our colleagues; without the Library’s assistance live orchestral performance would be even less frequent than it is."

Related posts:

Musings in the Music Library #5: Copyright 

Musings in the Music Library #4 - Cape Philharmonic Orchestra Library


Musings in the Music Library #3 - Cape Philharmonic Orchestra Library

Musings in the Music Library #2 - Cape Philharmonic Orchestra Library 

Musings in the Music Library #1

Musings in the Music Library #1

Daniel Neal, fellow librarian at the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra Library.

The following vignette was sent by Daniel Neal from the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra Library in a mail to the SABC Music Library and the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra Library:  

"Library collections such as the ones we shepherd are full of stories both practical and mysterious, and their atmospheres are permeated with that musty tinge of stories long gone and never to be recalled.  
Even more so with the three of us, as all three libraries have not come from an unbroken tradition and place of worship nor have we spent our acolyte apprenticeships at the feet of revered Masters who passed on Tradition and Knowledge.  
Coming into this room of mine is sometimes like disturbing a gathering of ghosts who mutter an inaudible and foreign language; I can catch the odd word but miss the grammar entirely.  
I occasionally go beneath the practical and take out some old Elgar score, unplayed for 80 years, and hold it in my hands as if it might speak of musical meanings and events long gone.  
And of course it remains unintelligible, whispering though it does..."

A regular posting of these musings to follow.