FROM THE EDITOR

Greetings from Vancouver! Once again thank you for your submissions for this newsletter. I had hoped to get it out to you earlier than last year, but because of unforeseen changes in many of our activities, I am a bit delayed.

I am sure we are all grateful that Beverly Stafford has agreed to be our new Secretary/Treasurer. I am especially thankful that she has stepped in at short notice and has responded quickly with items for this newsletter.

—Terry Horner

TREASURER'S REPORT

October 31, 2000

Current Balance as of October 30, 2000 (from bank statement): $2,255.23

May balance in the meeting report: $2,136.32

I. Income:

Dues paid (from May renewal forms on file): $260.00

Seattle May Meeting:

Total Received for meeting registration (dues counted separately

above): $470.00

Expenses: $309.01 itemized below:

Food $159.01

Honorariums $150.00

1999 Newsletter:

Printing $84.83 Canadian

Postage $141.83 Canadian

total in US funds: $160.00

MINUTES

PNWMLA BUSINESS MEETING

Seattle, Washington

May 13, 2000

Call to Order by John

Minutes 1999 in Newsletter -Moved for approval (John-moved; Laurel; 2nd)-Passed Approval

Treasurer's report given by Harry (no notes for this)

Old Business:

1. Recruitment brochure

During our last meeting in Eugene we set up a committee to produce a recruitment brochure. We asked for progress made on this brochure:

-No progress was made this past year

-Jim Cassaro (MLA president-elect) encouraged NW Chapter to apply to National for a grant for outreach. Applications are due mid-April.

-It was suggested that we target local library schools at the University of Washington and University of British Columbia.

-John asked for volunteers for a committee, no one responded.

-Second item suggested - outreach/aid to new prospects: Betty, Cindy and Paula volunteered for committee

2. Web site update:

-Thanks to John Gibbs for updating and maintaining the web site.

-Reminder to send directory updates to Cathy G.

-It was suggested that we add a link to membership form from the web page.

3. Directory update:

-Send Cathy any updates/suggestions

-it was suggested that we set up divisions for maintenance of the directory by state/region

-We agreed to make an archive (paper) edition of the directory once a year.

New Business:

1. Welcome to new members Katherine, Kirsti, and Bob. Welcome to Jim Cassaro (MLA president-elect).

Jim greeted us on behalf of the national Music Library Association.

-MLA is moving ahead with professional management, which is a very positive thing.

-We were strongly urged to apply for grants and nominate our favorite programs for the Best of Chapters sessions at the national meeting in New York in 2001.

-He asked for any suggestions for the location of national meetings.

Congratulations to Monica Fazekas (University of Victoria) for election as the new Chair-elect.

It was suggested that we consider raising dues. After short discussion is was agreed that there would be no raise in dues.

Change to Constitution proposed by John B. Not seconded.

-Extend chair term to 2 years

-Discussion ensued - This was done before but considered too much time commitment.

-Paula suggested requiring 2-year minimum membership before being eligible. Not seconded

Paula moved to add to officer "meeting arrangements". This officer would be responsible for hosting meeting and shall be responsible for the program in consultation with the Vice-Chair/Chair Elect. This motion not seconded.

John Gibbs brought up listserv suggestion to collect/digitize Northwest musical materials. Paula proposed to scrap brochure and do this. www.lis.washington.edu/music/projects.html has similar collections. General agreement to check collections for idea of scope.

Leslie strongly asked for people to consider running for the national MLA board!

John Gibbs brought up again providing assistance to members to attend meetings through Grants from National and using our own Treasury money until grant application is approved.

Leslie checking into Kevin Freeman program as a model, will set up guidelines and send out e-mail with proposition.

Next year's meeting in Pullman. Possibly put together 45 minutes of music for Friday noon concert series in the library. Following year in Victoria.

John officially thanked Hollis, Kirsten, Cathy.

Meeting adjourned at 1:01 PM

Dates and location for the annual meeting

The 2001 Annual Meeting of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Music Library Association will be held in Pullman, WA.,

May 4-5.

Call for nominations

At the time of finishing this newsletter, no Nominations Committee Chair has been appointed. The position of Vice Chair/Chair Elect is the only position up for election in spring 2001. Normally the Secretary/Treasure position comes up every odd-numbered year. Due to Harry Miller resigning the position this year, Beverly Stafford has agreed to serve as Secretary/Treasurer for the next two years.

Call for program ideas

We could use your help in gathering any particular ideas you have for the program. These can include programmatic ideas, places you might like to tour while in Pullman, or people from whom you would like to hear that might live there. Send ideas for the program/tours to:

Monica Fazekas,

University of Victoria,

McPherson Library

PO Box 1800 STN CSC

Victoria, BC V8W 3H5

Tel: (250) 721-8259

E-mail: fazekasm@uvic.ca

MEMBER NEWS

· Betty Woerner

Life continues to be interesting here at Reed this fall. We will be building a library addition beginning next year, so lots of planning discussions are going on. Fortunately, the IMC will not be affected much by the addition, but I feel for my colleagues who will have jackhammers right under their windows. Our major change this last summer was the addition of compact shelving throughout the IMC. This required the complete removal of the collection for 6 weeks, while the old shelves were removed, the decking and rails laid, and the new shelves mounted on carriages and installed. Everything is now back to normal, thank goodness, and there is finally room to shelve everything!

On the personal front, my son went back to Vermont for his senior year at Marlboro College, and my daughter is beginning her second year as an attorney in Nome, AK. She is playing in an old-time band called Landbridge Toll Booth, for which I composed a waltz. Beverly Stafford and I have been playing at a couple of English Country dances, calling ourselves Zephyrs and Flora, from the song of that name. I am also still the band-booking agent for the Portland contradance community, and yes, it's still fun.

Hope to see you all at the meeting.

· Beverly Stafford

Music: Betty Woerner and I have formed a band to play English country dance music; the name of our ensemble is Zephyrs and Flora. This lovely name is actually an English dance title, an old dance from 1728. Betty plays piano, and I play flute; we have played for several dances at this point, and are looking for a fiddle player to add a third sound. So, if you are visiting in Portland and would like to get together to play some tunes, just let us know.

The English Garland Dance group I play music for has now been in existence for 5 years, and we are planning some new dances written by members of the group for the next season, beginning in May.

Library: I enjoyed the Louisville conference, and came home with new projects. One was to review our loan/photocopy policies for music sent to other libraries, and send copyright policy statements to libraries we loan music to most frequently in Oregon.

Another project I am working on currently is setting up a small digital exhibit of Portland music from 1900-1920, after listening to Lois Schultz from Duke University. This is a much smaller project than the Duke online sheet music web site. We have a good selection of music scores in our library from 1900-1920 written by Portland composers, which we are combining with photographs from the Oregon History Center Library. The inventories and photographs were compiled with the help of one of the OHC staff, and I am now working on the web site and scanning music. This project is not finished yet, but hopefully will be completed by the end of December.

I attended the workshop "School for Scanning" in Seattle, in which they advised "start with a small project". This project certainly fits that advice, and though it is a small project compared to Duke, it is exciting to play through the music we have with one of the music volunteers and look at the photographs of composers and music events, including programs from old Rose Festival concerts and other events. Other PNW MLA librarians are beginning to work on similar projects, and we are all meeting soon to begin thinking about NW collections in a larger sense.

OTHER: This year has gone by very fast, I hope all is well with all of you, and I look forward to seeing you at the next occasion, perhaps NYC. I have enjoyed the notes from you while I have been working on updating the directory.

Another project I am working on currently is setting up a small digital exhibit of Portland music from 1900-1920, after listening to Lois Schultz

· Terry Horner

It has been a pleasure getting to know the members of the Chapter having taken on the responsibility of the Chapter Newsletter.

At UBC we have completed many projects mostly having to do with space problems. We are happy to say that we have moved a ‘few thousand’ low-use books to the Main Library, pitched our card catalogue, and made space for four new CD cabinets. Now we should be OK for space for at least a few years!

From a cataloguing point of view we have managed to get our scores backlog down to a bare minimum and are current with our CD, microforms and video backlog. We have also completed our first run of Recon. DRA clean-up after three years of implementation is still an ongoing problem. We still accept a copious amount of gifts, a product of so many people retiring or taking early retirement. Music Library sales are very popular at UBC!

The Music Library also took on the responsibility of the Wilson Recordings Collection, a circulating collection of LPs and CDs. A separate fee to use this collection is no longer applicable. This is especially popular with the music students.

I have also been in consultation with many chapter members about a digital sheet music project and more people are becoming interested in making this a reality. Some of us will meet in Seattle in November to get the ball rolling. I have had only enthusiastic response from local musicologists, archivists and librarians in the Vancouver area. I have been experimenting with scanning and the creation of MIDI files. Hopefully in the not so far future we will have something to demo at one of our chapter meetings.

I do hope to attend MLA in New York in February and expect to see many of you there. I’ll also take some time then and see family and friends in Ontario. I haven’t yet planned any other trips this year, but hope to visit friends in Winnipeg and Saskatoon in the spring. Meanwhile, I enjoy exploring more of BC and the Pacific Northwest with trips to Vancouver Island, Seattle and Portland.

· Leslie Bennett

With the advent of the UO's football team (whom I've only watched in person once-and that was a fluke!) gaining top rankings, you can only imagine the excitement that event generated in the Knight Library's Music Services Department. (Commence yawning now!) We're relatively calm this year, with a complete staff of two of us to serve the music patrons of the University.

The new Douglass Room supervisor, Terry McQuilkin, is a D.M.A. in Composition graduate of the UO and has been on board since March 24th. He seems to be enjoying working here-and has just experienced his first fall quarter of hiring and training students-and I haven't lost him yet- so things are looking good.

It has been another quiet year on the MLA Board-not!!!! As I'm sure you're all aware of, we've had one controversy after another discussed on the MLA-L list, primarily aimed at the Board's judgement. I could only hope that some of you will run for the Board so that you experience this process first hand! (And, in fact, we have a candidate from the Pacific Northwest -Debby Pierce- who is running! It has especially important that we support her, as even small voting blocks can make a difference in our election process for MLA.)

If you have opinions that you would like to share with me about how MLA is functioning in these days of strife, please let me know. I can be discreet-and I need to know what you all are concerned with, so that I can truly represent you to the Board. My last board meeting is right before the New York meeting-so your thoughts are especially timely!

On the personal note, our Douglass Room squirrels are busily building nests in the air vents of the Library, in order to entertain us with their babies in the spring. And, on a completely separate note, we are actually re-indexing the 20,000 popular sheet music collection that many of you may have heard about in past meetings. While the old index (produced with those wonderful keypunch cards of yesteryear) died, due to lack of foresight in converting them while there were still machines to read the data, we're going to provide new and better access to the collection. Perhaps the index will be far enough along to share with you at our next PNW/MLA meeting- with any luck, on the web! (The index that is, not the meeting!)

I wish you all a happy and warm fall- and hope to see you all in New York City, which should be a great meeting! Don't let the registration and hotel prices keep you from coming: there are lots of wonderful events that the local arrangements committee will be providing, including a breakfast the first full day of the conference, that may actually make this an affordable conference!

· Robert Puff

It's been a long time in development, but electronic publishing for music may finally be coming of age.

Over the last few months, several new electronic publishing solutions for music, which integrates some form of copy protection and e-commerce, have appeared. A common thread of these systems is that they allow the user to preview printed music visually and aurally before the full printable version is purchased.

A pioneer in the area of digital rights management and electronic publishing is here in the Pacific Northwest. Many of us have already been hearing about Sunhawk's proprietary Solero software which allows users connected via the Internet to view, hear, interact with, and then print music, once it is paid for (www.sunhawk.com). These purchased files are encrypted at all times and can only be decrypted by a unique "key" provided upon purchase. If this digital file is copied to another computer (even one with the Solero software) the recipient cannot open the encrypted file.

Although the notation scanning / engraving / editing software portion of Sunhawk's technology is not widely available to the general public as of this writing, components of Sunhawk's Internet preview / purchasing system for printable, ‘playable' music have inspired music software developers to create their own versions of printed music delivery systems which are based around the notation software itself.

Sibelius (www.sibelius.com) is a popular music notation / music engraving software package being aggressively marketed to music publishers. The Sibelius application, and the companion freeware browser plug-in ("Scorch") offers secure encryption and control over the functionality available before and after purchasing:

1) Whether customers can view the whole score or only specified pages until paid for.

2) Control over printing. Customers can print a free sample page, pay to print the whole score or print the score free of charge. Printing can also be completely disabled.

3) Play back of the score. This option can restrict playback to a fixed length preview.

4) Transposition of playback and printing is supported.

Finale, from Coda Music Technologies (www.codamusic.com) recently formed a partnership with Net4Music (www.net4music.com) to provide a secure e-commerce server for printed music files created by individual composers and publishers who use Finale software. Its browser plug-in (available before the end of the year) offers nearly identical functionality and security to the Sibelius delivery system.

Although its technology also makes use of a browser plug-in, Igor (www.noteheads.com) uses a different approach. This notation software, currently offered as freeware for the Mac, and soon for PC, visibly watermarks printed music pages until paid for. Once the music is purchased, this watermark disappears, and an alternate copyright line can be made to appear (i.e. "used by permission" etc.). Noteheads also offers an online store on their website where unknown composers can offer their music securely for sale on a grassroots level.

Not to be overlooked in all the excitement is the venerable Portable Document Format (PDF) by Adobe. Although not strictly for music, this format provides high quality printed output of text and graphics. Password access to previewing, editing and printing are currently supported and additional features will certainly be added as electronic documents of all types become more standard.

To counter its lack of music specific features, PDF offers a database management advantage over its proprietary music counterparts. Text contained within a page of music, such as title, composer, lyrics and annotations can remain as text within a graphical music document. This makes it possible for a database search engine to retrieve document specific information without relying on a synopsis. For the first time in history, composers not affiliated with a publisher can offer their music to a world wide market via one of several e-commerce delivery systems, or post their copyrighted music for free review in order to draw interest to their works. Publishers can offer searchable online databases so users can search for music by specific criteria faster than ever before. And the ability to preview music both visually and aurally while protecting it from unauthorized download or transfer should be a real boost to the music publishing industry.

· Sheila Knutsen

This year has seen much preparation for moving SPL collections. One project all three music librarians worked on last summer was score weeding. Many items are being replaced, though some cannot be, e.g., Goetchius's analytical symphony scores for piano and a number of interesting opera collections for piano 4 hands. We all made surprising discoveries along the way, including some works by local composers. Bob was able to gain space by weeding out extra piano-vocal opera scores and John came up with a quick solution for mending "Gamble-type" sheet music bindings.

A high point this year was my attendance at the American Guild of Organists Convention, July 2-6 at the Sheraton Hotel and at many churches in Seattle, as well as the Lagerquist Hall at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma. Daily concerts were of very high quality featuring nationally known organists; a variety of church services included newly commissioned works. A recent issue of The American Organist provides reviews. Workshops I attended included early French music, Baroque registration, chorale preludes by Bach (which sound less like Bach than others) and "How to get one's music published."

On July 7th & 8th I attended a separate French music seminar presented by Naji Hakim and Marie-Bernadette Dufourcet Hakim, respectively composer and performer of a concerto programmed at Benaroya Hall on July 6th. Naji Hakim's association with Messaien and both presenters' long study with Jean Langlais made this a very worthwhile seminar.

Film Night at the American Dance Therapy Convention in Seattle on October 26^th included an inspiring portrayal of Trudi Schoop's work with the severely mentally ill and examples of two therapists' work with breast cancer patients. Preceding the films I attended an "Introduction to Dance Therapy" by Christine Hopkins of Seattle.

· Paula Elliot

Paula Elliot sends greetings to everyone, and looks forward to welcoming the chapter to the spring meeting on the campus of Washington State University.

Seattle 2000

· Betty Woerner