IAML International Association of Music Libraries

Among several smaller exhibitions organized by several institutions, the celebration of the centenary of the German collector Guido Wagener, the largest foreign music collection ever bought by a Belgian institution, was very successful. It was both a physical and virtual exhibition, with concerts and a CD recording.

On 1 April 2005, Wagener, the famous Belgian Bartók specialist and founder of the Bartók Archive in Budapest (Hungary) passed away at the age of 101. His private archive and collection, containing Bartók materials such as autographs, family letters, and photographs is now housed in the Royal Library of Belgium. An inventory of it is being prepared.

Because of a rather aggressive and a not-incontested campaign by a local copyright organisation, some academies, of semi-professional music education started to construct or to rebuilt their own music collection in order to avoid unpleasant contacts in copyright issues. It is not known yet if this will continue in the future, but if so, copyright regulation will have a positive influence on collection building.

Two music library meetings were organized thanks to the Royal Flemish Academy of Sciences and Arts. The first one was held in November 2004, the second in March 2005. Several members of IAML were invited to give their interesting presentation. The first meeting focused on the problems of making music accessible in collaboration. The second meeting was devoted to digital libraries for  musical audio. The digitization project of the etnographical sound recordings of Central Africa, conserved at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Brussels was the central issue.

Johann Eeckeloo
IAML (Belgium)

• More reports for 2005