FROM THE EDITOR

Once again I am glad to bring you news of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of MLA and its members. This is the 20^th issue of the newsletter and I thank you for your continued support and contributions.

In the true New York spirit, the MLA national conference in New York was a great success. Many thanks to our New York colleagues for making us all feel so welcome and for putting on an informative and well-organized event. I wish I could have been there longer to take in more of such a great city! I was sorry to not be able to attend our chapter meeting in Pullman but look forward to attending in Victoria in May 2002.

In January of this year, Kirsten Walsh and I toured potential MLA conference sites with MLA Convention Manager Don Roberts and Assistant Convention Manager Gordon Rowley. We were wined and dined by an enthusiastic group from Tourism Vancouver. I am happy to say that it was announced at MLA in New York that Vancouver would be hosting the 2005 MLA conference at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver. Kirsten and I have agreed to be co-hosts for this conference. We look forward to working with other Pacific Northwesters to help bring together a memorable conference.

Ray Heigemeir, Chair, MLA/Northern California Chapter sent us an e-mail which suggests we hold a West Coast joint meeting. This is an exciting suggestion. His e-mail is reprinted below

Looking forward to seeing you once again soon!

—Terry Horner

A Joint Meeting of West Coast Chapters?

Here is an e-mail sent by Ray Heigemeir, Chair, MLA/Northern California Chapter suggesting a joint meeting:

All,

At the last MLA/NCC meeting we revisited the frequency of our chapter meetings and decided to continue to meet twice per year. However, in discussing the merits of joint meetings with neighboring chapters the intriguing idea arose of possibly having a West Coast joint meeting at some time in the future. This would include the membership of the Pacific Northwest, Southern California, and Northern California chapters.

This undertaking would require a fair amount of planning (of course!), beginning with the choice of a date and host. But first "the waters must be tested." At your respective next meetings, would you be willing to propose the idea to your memberships? I will put it on the agenda as well for our fall meeting (date/place TBA) to gauge level of interest, ability to travel, and willingness to help in the planning. Afterward (perhaps at MLA Las Vegas) we could compare notes and see if the idea of a West Coast meeting is something we wish to consider in greater detail.

Please be in touch at your convenience, and enjoy the rest of the summer.

Thanks,

Ray Heigemeir, Chair, MLA/Northern California Chapter

TREASURER'S REPORT

October 30, 2001

Compiled by: Beverly B. Stafford, Secretary/Treasurer

Expenses:

Newsletters:

Fall, 2000 Newsletter duplication and postage: $ 148.53

Membership forms, meeting announcements, postage:

Membership forms and postage for renewal notices: $ 10.00

Forms Duplication for Spring Mailings, USPS fees: $ 56.00

Spring Meeting Pullman, Washington, May 5, 2001

Refreshments for meetings/Dinner Catering Saturday: $ 396.32

Gift for Paula Matthews: $ 37.00

Total Expenses: $ 647.85

Revenue:

Memberships: $ 320.00

May Meeting Registrations: $ 110.00

May Meeting Dinner Registrations: $ 243.00

Total Revenue: $ 673.00

Current Balance as of October 31, 2001: $2185.56

Beverly Stafford and Sarah Dorsey ‘noshing’ in New York at MLA

Pullman 2001

The Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Music Library Association held its annual meeting May 4-5, 2001 at the Pullman campus of Washington State University. The meeting began with a cello recital in the Atrium of the Holland Library. We were then welcomed to Pullman and Washington State University by Lynn Chmelir, Assistant Director for Public services, WSU Libraries and by James Schoepflin, Director of the School of Music and Theatre Arts, WSU.

The Friday afternoon sessions included a wonderful presentation by Beverly Stafford about the Northwest Digital Music History Project that she is working on at the Multnomah County Public Library in Portland. This presentation was later chosen at our business meeting as the PNW-MLA chapter's Best of Chapters submission. Monica Fazekas provided conference reports on copyright issues from the Musical Intersections conference and the Forum on the Recording Industry from the MLA conference. There was a visit to Special Collections to view music manuscripts from the WSU Archives and a tour of the music building including the renovated Kimbrough Hall and of the library in the School of Music and Theatre Arts. We were lucky to have Paula Matthews, past president of the Music Library Association in attendance on Friday. She discussed developments in the national organization, encouraged us to send in a submission for the Best of Chapters session and to possibly become involved in the diversity committee.

On Friday evening we met at Alice Spitzer's (Paula Elliot's colleague) house. It was an enjoyable evening full of great food, conversation, impromptu music making, juggling and the aforementioned clog dancing.

Saturday saw us reconvene at the Holland Library where we visited the Media Materials Department. There was an informative session dealing with Digital Audio Delivery for Reserve Listening. The presenters included music librarians, faculty members and a systems librarian. Leslie Bennett gave a presentation on Songs and Song Lyrics: indexing systems, search methods and bibliography. We concluded with our annual Business Meeting. Full details of the meeting are given in the minutes.

---Monica Fazekas

MINUTES

PNWMLA BUSINESS MEETING

Pullman, Washington

May 5, 2000

Kirsten Walsh, President of the PNW Chapter, chaired the meeting.

Chapter members present: Paula Elliot, Beverly Stafford, Leslie Bennett, Betty Woerner, Laurel Sercombe, Monica Fazekas, Cindy Richardson, Marian Ritter, John Gibbs, and Cathy Gerhart.

Corrections to Spring, 2000 Minutes in the Fall, 2000 Newsletter:

Correction page 6: John Brower (not John Gibbs as stated in the newsletter) brought up again providing assistance to members to attend meetings through Grants.

With this correction, the minutes were accepted.

Treasury Report: from Beverly Stafford (see full year Treasury Report)

Expenses paid from Sept. 2000 to May 5, 2001: $868.85

Revenue (Registrations and Dues) to May 5, 2001: $318.00

Balance as of May 5, 2001: $2136.76 (does not include payment for some expenses of the May Chapter meeting)

Preliminaries: Kirsten thanked Beverly Stafford for serving as the Secretary/Treasurer, and John Gibbs for maintaining the chapter web site at the University of Washington.

Web site projects: There was a request to add the fall, 2000 Newsletter to the web site, plus the Chapter handbook and membership directory. Discussion followed about appropriate formats for the chapter directory entries to maintain information privacy of members. It was agreed that the directory entries would include the members' names and library contact information, plus an email address link. It was suggested that retired Librarians who wish to be included in the online form of the directory could be listed by name, but not with any address information. Publication of the Members' Directory on the web site will include verification by each chapter member, so that everyone can review their entry for the online version. It was suggested that we add the agenda and registration information about the annual chapter meeting beginning in March of next year.

Directory of PNW Music Collections: Cathy Gerhart gave a report on the Directory of Music Collections in PNW Libraries:

As of May 5^th, Cathy had received 64 out of 100 directory entries sent out to PNW libraries, with updates still coming in, at the rate of 2-3 per month. One person wrote that their collection was too small to include in the directory. Cindy Richardson suggested that we include date information on the form so that we would have a record of when each entry is updated; the original entries are from 1998. Cathy has never received any voluntary updates from libraries, and she suggested we use a 2-year renewal cycle for collecting entries.

Cathy asked if one of the MLA members could write a preface for the directory that would state what is included, who prepared the directory, etc. Cindy Richardson said that she would write this preface, and requested more information for the title page. The directory needs a "statement of responsibility" for cataloging, and entering the directory in OCLC.

As of May 2001, the directory exists only in electronic form; Cathy asked whether we need to have a paper copy or whether digital form would suffice.

Kirsten: Appreciation to Elmer Buehler

In 1941 Woody Guthrie was hired to work at BPA to compose songs about the region, a song a day, paid at the rate of $266.66 per month. Elmer Buehler, a BPA staff worker, helped Woody by driving him through the Columbia River countryside so that he could become more familiar with the landscape. His friendship with Woody Guthrie, and the music that resulted from their excursions is documented through interviews in the video Roll on Columbia, produced by the University of Oregon. For more information about this documentary, see the web site "Woody Guthrie and the Bonneville Power Association": http://libweb.uoregon.edu/med_svc/wguthrie/Pages/the_documentary.html

Leslie Bennett and Kirsten suggested that we honor Mr. Buehler for his contributions to Northwest music by awarding him a lifetime membership in the PNW MLA Chapter. After some discussion, Paula proposed that we award Mr. Buehler a lifetime membership as suggested. This proposal was then seconded and approved by a vote of all chapter members present. Cathy Gerhart will send a letter to Mr. Buehler; Beverly will write the text for the chapter web site.

Kirsten: Welcomed returning and new members of the PNW Chapter, and expressed appreciation to Paula Matthews, past president of MLA, for attending our Annual Meeting.

Kirsten: Election results: Kirsten thanked John Brower and Paula Elliot for offering to serve as President of the PNW Chapter in the election this past spring. Paula received the highest number of votes and will be the new incoming President of our chapter. Kristen is chair of the nominating committee for the next year's election in 2002, assisted by Laurel Sercombe.

Kirsten: Upcoming Chapter Meetings: The Annual Spring meeting in May 2002 will be hosted in Victoria, BC. This will be followed by Portland in 2003, and Vancouver in 2004, prior to the national MLA conference that will be held in Vancouver in 2005. Kirsten thanked everyone for the support she has received thus far to help with planning the MLA 2005 conference that will be hosted by our chapter in 2005.

Best of Chapters entry: Paula recommended that we sponsor Beverly Stafford's digital project Portland Music Remembered 1900-1923 for the Best of Chapters competition to present at the MLA conference in Las Vegas next February. This was seconded and approved in a vote of members present. Outcome: Beverly submitted in the proposal, signed and mailed by Monica Fazekas, but they chose other projects this year for the presentations.

Web site reference: http://www.multnomah.lib.or.us/lib/guides/ormusic/index.html

Treasurer's items: Beverly requested that the MLA PNW account be transferred from Seattle to Portland, so that statements can be sent directly to her, and checks have a current address. Discussion followed, with a motion and vote (approved), that the MLA account move with the Treasurer following elections. The signers on the account will be changed with each election to include the current officers. This change will be added to the Chapter Handbook. Outcome: The account is now moved to Portland, in a local branch for the same bank, with Monica Fazekas listed as a co-signer along with Beverly Stafford, Treasurer. Paula Elliot will be listed as a signer on the account in the coming year. This change is reflected in the Chapter Handbook.

MLA PNW Archives: Leslie brought the Archives for the Chapter and gave them to Beverly Stafford, as Secretary/Treasurer for the Chapter. Leslie requested that everyone look through their records and send anything that should be included in the Archives to Beverly to add to these files.

Adjournment: Kirsten thanked Paula and Monica for all of their work planning and hosting the meeting, and we adjourned at 1:00 PM. A dinner followed the meeting in the evening for members and their guests.

Call for nominations

Kirsten Walsh has agreed to chair the Nominations Committee this year. The Vice Chair/Chair elect position will have to be filled. Please send names of nominees to Kirsten by February 1, 2002.

Dates and location for the annual meeting

The 2002 Annual Meeting of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Music Library Association will be held in Victoria, BC,

May 3-4.

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 Victoria, or people from whom you would like to hear that might live there. Send ideas for the program/tours to:

Paula Elliot

410 Dexter St. SE

Pullman WA 99163

Washington State University

Holland Library

Reference Dept.

Pullman WA 99164-5610

(509) 335-8126 (o)

elliotp@wsu.edu

More MLA ‘noshers’ in New York: from left, Cindy Richardson, Katia Strieck, Paula Elliot

NEWS FROM THE MEMBERSHIP

Betty Woerner

It's hard to believe that another fall has rolled around already. For the first time in 10 years I don't have any offspring enrolled in institutions of higher education, so I'm finding that everything is much more affordable! My daughter is now in Juneau, which is much more accessible than Nome, although not so colorful. My son found a job in Albany, NY, close to his sweetie. We're all going to Juneau for the winter holidays, so get to see what serious rain looks like.

The library at Reed is in the midst of a massive remodel and expansion project, adding vast amounts of stack space, new reading rooms and new library offices. Unfortunately, the IMC where I am doesn't get to participate in this. I will benefit indirectly, however, because the Writing/Tutoring center, which has occupied a room in the IMC for years, will be moving into the new Educational Technology b This will leave me with an actual office with a door that closes for the first time in 15 years. Woo-ee!

As a result of a summer of arduous cataloging, I now have all our archival audio and videotapes cataloged, classified, and shelved. Yesterday I was approached by the dance dept. and was offered a huge collection of videos of the summer dance festivals that have occurred here over the years. From what I have seen so far, there seem to be many wonderful gems among these tapes, which we will convert to VHS and will probably constitute another summer cataloging project.

I'm looking forward to seeing all of you at the Las Vegas meeting. Hope you all can attend.

· Catherine Gerhart

The big news in my work life is being moved five miles off campus to the old Sand Point Naval Airstation facility. 60 other Technical Services staff is here as well. We will be here until Aug. of 2002. It is difficult to be so far removed from colleagues, staff and students, not to mention FOOD. We are all looking forward to getting back to Suzzallo Library once it is an earthquake safe building.

Personally I've been doing lots of playing, music that is. I continue to be the Principal flutist in the Seattle Symphonic Band. As the number of people in the band increases the challenges increase as well. I'm also in a small chamber group called "Cheep Trills". We play trio sonatas (flute, oboe, string bass and harpsichord) and have fun mostly, but gigs are definitely something we aspire to.

The kids are growing up. I should warn anyone planning on driving in the Seattle area that Julian will be getting his learners permit this winter... so watch out. Yes, he'll be turning 16 in March. Colin (11) decided to play trumpet in Middle School so we've added a brass player to our very woodwind/string oriented family.

· Paula Elliot

As you all know, last spring the PNWMLA Chapter met in Pullman at Washington State University. Thanks again to so many chapter members who made the special effort to come so far. I really enjoyed hosting everyone, including Paula Matthews, who as national Past President made the trip from Princeton to join us.

This year, the WSU music department is doing its NASM accreditation study, which has occasioned several revelations about the library. A "previously undiscovered" cache of music materials has surfaced in our compact storage area, for example. I continue on my perpetual campaign to get Dewey scores reclassed to LC. We've begun to offer online audio reserves for a few classes, and more faculty are getting interested in this mode of delivery.

Over the summer, when Paul and I were vacationing on the Olympic Peninsula, we visited the little historical museum near Lake Quinault Lodge. There in one of the exhibit cases was a (presumably) rare piece of sheet music called "Little Quinault Maid," a 1912 imprint. (See the cover below) Thinking that it might be a candidate for our PNW sheet music project, I had some correspondence with the museum's curator and subsequently received jpeg files of the piece, now on my computer awaiting further treatment. In exchange, the museum requested a recorded performance of the piece. I have yet to make good on my end of the deal.

Cover from

Little Quinault Maid

Hear the music:

<A HREF="Little_Quinault_Maid.mid">[Play Sound]</A>

· Beverly Stafford

Hello fellow MLA PNW members; it was fun to see everyone this year who came to the MLA Annual Meeting in NYC, and the Spring Meeting in Pullman. I enjoyed both meetings very much and am looking forward to all of us working on the Vancouver meeting in 2005. May we all prosper meanwhile and return to the calmer environment that we knew as normal when we attended both of these meetings. I enjoyed the brief immersion of walking around in NYC in what time was available, observing the architecture as well as the New Yorkers rushing about, and have felt very sad, as we all have, over the events of the recent past.

Here in the Multnomah County Library, I have seen Barbara Rhyne fairly often, since she is back as a volunteer working on the Song Indexing Project, so that we have song titles available as a search. This past year we had funds from the Oregon Reference Link to order additional music scores to lend out to libraries. Many of these came with the song contents added already (except for the fakebooks) since the records were complete in OCLC. This saves us time, but there is still plenty for Barbara to work on when she comes in on Sundays.

Thank you for recommending my digital music project for the "Best of Chapters" entry. I did send it in, but they chose other projects this year. I am still adding items to the web site: http://www.multnomah.lib.or.us/lib/guides/ormusic/index.html. One of my friends here has a photograph she lent me of a Boy's choir with several hundred singers. It is hard to see the individual faces in the original photograph, but when I scanned the photo (12 sections), you can see much more clearly the entire choir, a typical group of 8-12 year olds, not standing very still:

http://www.multnomah.lib.or.us/lib/guides/ormusic/whitney.html since there are many scores to add, this project will continue for quite a while.

Aside from the Library, "my" dance group, the Wild Rose Garland Dancers, has a nice correspondence going this year with a Garland dance team in England, and we are hoping to learn some of their dances and hopefully go visit them at some point. All of our performances this year at various festivals have been a lot of fun. We now have a jazz pianist playing along with me for the English/Scottish tunes we use, and this brings a smile to the faces of the dancers. We played for an event sponsored by the Oregon Historical Society; they have a series of photographs (including one of us) on their web site: www.ohs.org in their "Events" section.

Also, last spring a harpsichordist/organist and I gave a concert of French Baroque music. Now we are working on some wonderful pieces for flute and obbligato harpsichord by CPE Bach, hopefully for another concert at some point.

Looking forward to seeing you at the next occasion.

· Terry Horner

The web site on British Columbia sheet music I have been creating is still very much in the test mode. I have been very busy researching and gathering information on sheet music that has a theme or mention of British Columbia (and its people, places) in the lyrics or title. This project is mainly historical rather than preservation.

I have now identified about 130 pieces of music and have been occupied in locating copies of the sheet music, describing the material, creating notation and MIDI files, scanning the music, researching copyright ownership, interviewing composers and consulting with musicologists. I plan to spend more time on putting up more information on the web this fall and winter.

Needless to say, this takes up a lot of my time so I haven’t been performing this year. Over the summer I did have several weekends out of town hiking on Vancouver Island. I look forward to a relaxing Christmas in Palm Springs this year with friends.

· Laurel Sercombe

I finally finished my dissertation in 2001, 25 years after my last degree! (M.L.S.). I even marched at commencement in June, wore the purple gown and pincushion hat, and shook Richard McCormick's hand. Just for the record, the title is "And Then It Rained: Power and Song in Western Washington Coast Salish Myth Narratives." Unfortunately, I'm stupider than ever. I have no intention of leaving my job in the UW Ethnomusicology Archives, which continues to be a very interesting, if frustrating, line of work.

· Sheila Knutsen

This year brought some milestones for me. On June 11th I moved from a small rental house where I lived and at times taught piano during a 30-year period to a house which I purchased about 1 1/2 miles away. At almost the same time I moved from the Central Library at 4th and Madison where I had worked for 30 years to our temporary location. The last day in our old library was June 8 and we opened in our new one on July 7th. My former house was torn down in August and a new one is now taking shape. Two days ago the demolition of the library began. By now I'm pretty used to both new places, but it was an upheaval. A high point of the year was attending the conference in New York City. It was a pleasure to see many of you there, and now looking back I am also grateful to have had the time in New York. Currently I am subbing as organist for two months and have a couple of piano students. These activities and work provide some balance against the uncertainties we now face.

I hope all of you are well.

· Hollis Near

At Cornish we have finished converting the card catalog for scores. What decade is this? Seriously, I am so proud of our staff for having accomplished this in one year. Scores were the last holdout from the original conversion of the general collection in 1995.

During the summer I was able to focus on a purchasing project using grant money from the Allen Foundation to enhance our CD collection in contemporary composition, classical and jazz. We used Music Library Services Company for the project and I was pleased with their turn-around time and order reports.

We are now archiving the Music Department’s performance tapes, starting with 1998, in the listening center. These include all visiting artist, student and faculty performances. We were also able to add a DAT machine, CD burner and additional CD and tape players to convert in-house production recordings.

Last spring we weeded our LP collection and held a sale raising $700 for the library and reducing the collection by three-quarters.

· Kirsten Walsh

The UBC Library has received a wonderful donation of Stravinskiana from Dr. Colin Slim, a UBC alumnus and musicologist now retired from the University of California at Irvine. Nearly 50 years ago, Dr. Slim mounted an all-Stravinsky concert at UBC, which was ultimately responsible, for Stravinsky's being invited to conduct the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra for the first time. His gift will be celebrated April 5-7, 2002 at UBC with an exhibition, symposium, and re-enactment of his April 7, 1952 concert. Dr. Slim's collection includes many autograph quotations, postcards, letters, documents, photographs, and several manuscripts; he has also created a detailed catalogue, which is being published by the UBC Library and which will be mailed to all music libraries in Canada and the United States. Browsing through the collection as it is being prepared for exhibition has been an amazing experience for me. I hope you can co