IAML International Association of Music Libraries

Minutes of Council Meeting held Sunday 1 July at 14.00 and Thursday 5 July 2007 at 16.00 at the Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, Australia.

Present: (at both sessions unless otherwise indicated by I or II)
Bob Acker, observer (II); Kathy Adamson, observer (I); Tsuneko Arakawa, President, Japanese National Branch; Jon Bagüés, observer (II); André Balog, observer (I); Georgina Binns, observer (I); Ole Bisbjerg, representative Danish National Branch; Bonna Boettcher, observer (II); Alastair Boyd, observer; Maureen Buja, Editor, Fontes Artis Musicae; Jolanta Byczkowska-Sztaba, representative, Polish National Branch (I); Maria Calderisi, observer; Jim Cassaro, IAML Vice-President, Chair Programme Committee; Richard Chesser, Chair, Constitution Committee; Inger Johanne Christiansen, observer; Mary Wallace Davidson, representative, US National Branch; Elizabeth Davis, observer; David Day, Chair Bibliography Commission (I); Santie de Jongh, observer (II); Johan Eeckeloo, Belgian representative (II); Inger Enquist, observer; Karl Erik Ericsson, observer; Manuel Erviti, observer (II); Astrid Evassdotter, observer; Michael Fingerhut, observer; Gert Floor, representative, Netherlands National Branch; Roger Flury, IAML Secretary General; Gabriele Gamba, IAML Webmaster; Massimo Gentili-Tedeschi, IAML President; Aurika Gergeleziu, representative, Estonian National Branch; Julianna Gócza, representative, Hungarian National Branch; Antony Gordon, Chair, Cataloguing Commission and Information Technology Committees; Liz Hart, representative, UK & Ireland National Branch; Dominique Hausfater, IAML Vice-President; Veslemöy Heintz, Chair RILM Commission mixte (I); Ruth Hellen, IAML Vice-President & Chair, Outreach Committee; Berit Holth, observer; Stanislaw Hrabia, representative, Polish National Branch; Ulla Ikäheimo, representative Finnish National Branch; Kimiko Inoue, observer (II); Marguerite Iskenderian, observer (II); Tone Notvik Jakobsen, observer (II); Thomas Kalk, representative German National Branch ; Klaus Keil, observer (II); Tina Kilvio Tuescher, observer (II); Ben Knysak, observer (II); Christiane Kriloff, observer (I); Wolfgang Krueger, Chair, Commission on Service & Training; Jutta Lambrecht, Chair, Broadcasting & Orchestra Libraries Branch; Lawrence Languin, representative, French National Branch (I); Tamara Lapteva , representative, Russian National Branch; Anne Le Lay, Chair, Libraries in Music Teaching Institutions Branch; Olga Lipsky, observer (II); Anders Lönn, observer (II); Barbara Dobbs Mackenzie, observer; Brian McMillan, observer (II); Geraldine Ostrove, observer; Rupert Ridgewell, observer; John H. Roberts, IAML Past-President & Chair Publications Committee; Christel Rosenborg, representative, Swedish National Branch (II); Julie Schnepel, observer; Murray Scott, observer; Alla Semenyuk, observer; Martie Severt, IAML Treasurer; John Shepard, Chair, Archives and Music Documentation Branch; David Sommerfield, observer; Egl Stalnionier, observer (II); Siren Steen, representative, Norwegian National Branch; Yasuko Todo, observer; Judy Tsou, observer; Christine Vincent, observer (II); Agostina Zecca-Laterza, representative, Italian National Branch.

The President of IAML, Massimo Gentili-Tedeschi, welcomed Council Members and observers to the meeting. He reminded those attending about voting rights.

Members of Council with voting rights are:
1 representative of a National Branch
1 delegate from a country with at least 10 members
The President of IAML
4 Vice-presidents
2 immediate Past-presidents
Chairs of Professional Branches
Chairs of Subject Commissions

Members of Council without voting rights are:
The Secretary general
The Treasurer
Chairs of Joint Commissions
The Editor of Fontes
The Editor of the Newsletter
The IAML Webmaster

Other attendees may be:
Advisors chosen by Council (Advisors may speak, but not vote).
Ordinary members of IAML as observers (observers may speak with the approval of Council but may not vote).

Chairs of Working Groups are not members of Council.

Before commencing formal business Council voted unanimously to allow observers the right to speak at the meeting.

1. Minutes of the previous meeting

Minutes from the 2006 Göteborg Council meeting had beeen circulated to Council members.

2. Any matters arising 

There were no matters arising.

3. President's report

The President of IAML, Massimo Gentili-Tedeschi, welcomed Council Members and observers to the Congress in Sydney.

The President reported on the Amadeus Project, which had been submitted unsuccessfully for European Union funding. He was concerned that there had been misunderstandings about the ability of the project to be self-funding, but equally concerned that classical music was being dismissed as a “niche” activity.

In September of 2006, the President, along with Ilvi Rauna, Pia Shekter, Pam Thompson, and Joachim Jaenecke, was a guest for the 140th anniversary celebrations of the Moscow Conservatoire.

The following month he accompanied the Chair of the Outreach Committee, Ruth Hellen, to Armenia  a trip that had been postponed from 2005. There were many library visits, and a report was prepared for the Minister of Culture on the state of the National Musicological Library.

4. Secretary General's Report

The Secretary General, Roger Flury, reported on the Board's activities since the last Council meeting in Göteborg, 2006.

A mid-year meeting was held on Friday 16 and Saturday 17 March 2007 in Paris at the Médiathèque Hector Berlioz of the Paris Conservatoire. The proximity of the library to the Cité de la Musique enabled the Board to spend some time there before the meeting. A short tour was followed by a demonstration of the online database. There was also a formal tour of the Conservatoire, and the Board is extremely grateful to Dominique Hausfater for arranging all of this, and for entertaining us with a delicious meal at her apartment.

In addition to the usual business of the Board, a considerable amount of time was set aside for discussion of proposals received from our colleagues in Norway and Denmark, and also for some proposals relating to constitutional issues and voting procedures. It was felt that the Board would benefit from the expert contribution of Richard Chesser on this occasion, and we were grateful that he was able to join us on Saturday.

Branches. For the very first time, the Secretary General received several National Branch reports ahead of time, and he congratulated those who managed this. It makes the collation of reports for the Newsletter and Fontes so much easier.

For the benefit of those new Branch representatives who might not know the procedure, he explained that the National Report session on Monday afternoon would be the opportunity to hear short reports on National Branch activities since the last conference. Copies of these reports should be sent to the Secretary General, preferably in electronic format, as soon as possible so that they can be edited for the IAML electronic Newsletter and Fontes. Longer versions of reports should also be sent to him as soon as possible, in electronic format. These longer reports will appear in Fontes and on the website.

Website. He stressed the importance of keeping information on the website up-to-date. Many members seem to be doing just that, but for those who had not checked their National Branch details lately, he urged them to take a moment to visit the site and send any changes to the Webmaster. There have been many improvements to the website this year, and it is becoming increasingly central to our operations as an organisation. He thanked the Webmaster, Gabriele Gamba, for his great work throughout the year which has made the website so attractive and at the same time practical.

Elections. This had been a particularly busy year. The preparation and distribution of CVs and ballot papers was very time-consuming, but ultimately rewarding, as the ballots arrived often with beautiful stamps attached. It was complicated a little on this occasion by the need to give members the opportunity to submit a revised ballot, due to the withdrawal of Chris Banks, and to make sure that those revised ballots were not double-counted. He thanked Maureen Buja and our colleagues at A-R editions who had once again showed their ability to think outside the square and resolve some of the practical issues. Costs were minimised at this election by being able to incorporate the ballot papers with a Fontes mailing – yet another benefit of having Fontes back on schedule!

Happily there were no spoiled ballots, but four did arrive more than a month too late to be included. With the help of two Wellington-based IAML members, the ballots were counted and the results would be announced later in the Council meeting.

Treasurer.  The Treasurer, Martie Severt, would be reporting fully on IAML finances and the status of our membership so it was only necessary to report, with regret, that this would be Martie's last Report as Treasurer.

The Board had established a search committee to seek candidates for the position. Three applications had been received, but only one candidate was considered to be sufficiently outstanding to be called for interview. A recommendation to appoint was made to the Board in Paris, and Council will be asked to approve the successful candidate later in this meeting.

Secretary General. The Secretary General's 4-year term ended officially at this conference, but as reported last year, the Board had invited him to stay in the position for two more years. This will help to provide some continuity during a transition period which will see several new Vice-Presidents, a new President and a new Treasurer all taking up office at the end of this conference. Roger Flury reported that he was delighted to continue in the role, and acknowledged once again the generous support of both IAML and the National Library of New Zealand.

Publications. The IAML Electronic Newsletter, under the editorship of Michael Fingerhut, has carved out a very distinctive niche for itself. It serves as an important communication tool, but more than that, it offers us a vast window on the wide world of music, delivered in a neatly assembled package direct to your computer, complete with optional links to every appropriate site for those who want to learn more. There had been 4 issues published since the Swedish conference – July 2006, and March, April and June 2007. The range of news items was astounding – from the photographs of the IAML organ tour during last year's conference, to events, publications, technological developments, web highlights, competitions, awards, music library news, the occasional bit of gossip, and of course, obituaries. The Secretary General commented that he had been impressed to find a tribute to the late New Zealand composer David Farquhar in the latest issue, but at the same time, embarrassed that he had neglected to submit it. It spoke volumes for Michael's work as editor, assembler and main contributor, and he wanted to take this opportunity to thank him for his work and say that he hopes the Editor will continue to make the Newsletter an indispensable component of the IAML network.

Those members who have joined the IAML-L discussion list receive advance notification that it is available.

The equally remarkable Editor of Fontes, Maureen Buja, would report on progress later in this meeting. Now that Fontes is back on schedule, the Secretary General congratulated Maureen and of course, A-R Editions for their extraordinary efforts.

Correspondence. The Secretary General thanked everyone who has been in touch with him during the year. It was great to hear their news and, if possible, help to answer their enquiries.

Much of the year's correspondence had related to the Sydney conference. Special thanks went to Georgina Binns, Laurel Dingle, Bligh Glass, Robyn Holmes, Ludwig Sugiri and Carolyn Symes for so patiently dealing with all enquiries.

Thanks to assistance from IAML and the National Library of New Zealand, the Secretary General had been able to attend the 2-day Australian Branch conference and planning meeting last September in Melbourne. It had been an exhilarating conference, with presentations dealing with the Orchestras of Australia Network, the Australian Music Association, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, library tutorials for music students at Monash University, and the Louise Hanson Dyer Collection of early printed and manuscript scores and treatises. On the second day Secretary General gave a general overview of the IAML conferences that he had experienced, and later in the day he was able to answer any questions that arose about the Sydney conference during the planning meeting. It was a worthwhile excursion, and he hoped that it had helped the home team a little.

The Secretary General expressed his gratitude to Jim Cassaro who, as Chair of the Programme Committee, had once again shown his usual patience, tact, humour and diplomacy in pulling the conference programme together.

Conferences. Although this was already an Agenda item for later in the meeting, he thanked all those branches who had so obligingly agreed to reschedule their conferences.

Yearbooks and directories. As usual, several updates had been supplied for publications and other databases in which we are listed. These included The Haworth Press, The College Music Society, The Bowker Annual, The Yearbook of International Organisations, Musical America, IFLA, The British Music Yearbook, Associations Canada, The International Literary Marketplace and The Europa World Yearbook

The Secretary General was preparing a biennial report of IAML activities for the International Music Council's General Assembly later this year in Bejing. He also mentioned that the IAMIC annual conference had recently been held in Wellington, and that it had been good to see some familiar faces there.

Acknowledgements. The Secretary General thanked those members who had helped, or offered to help, with translations, especially Almut Boehme, Thomas Kalk, Anne Le Lay and Dominique Hausfater.

Finally, he expressed his appreciation to the IAML Board, some of whom would be retiring this year. They had been a marvellous group, who work so hard for IAML and for the well-being of our profession. However, he felt that when members hear the results of the elections, they will be reassured that the tradition of dedication and hard work will be maintained over the next three years.

5. Treasurer's report

Martie Severt had circulated his final Treasurer's report by email prior to the Council meeting. He reported that IAML is in stable financial health and, although our reserves are not great, they are sufficient to allow us to continue.

Income. Income from membership for 2006 was a little more than anticipated, even though not all branches were able to send their dues on time. Another €8000 is expected to be received in 2007. He asked all branches to be punctual with sending their dues in the future, especially now that Fontes was back on schedule. Almost all individual members had paid their dues for 2006.

Miscellaneous income from label sales and especially advertising was less than expected, but offshore investments produced a nice return in 2006.

Expenditure. This was less than expected, because the costs of printing and mailing Fontes were less than anticipated. Several issues of the journal were shipped together, saving postage costs. However, in 2006 our expenditure exceeded income, because we had to pay for many issues of Fontes.

The Outreach Fund attracted a large donation from the Swedish Branch, which was transferred to the Sydney Conference. 2006 was the 9th year in which 2.5% of all income (minus donations) was added to the Outreach Fund.

Budget 2004-2006. In this period it was not necessary to revise the rate at which the € is calculated from the US$ or UK£. Dues were increased in 2005. Despite a small decline in membership income has been stable. Most of our investments matured in 2005 and the money was transferred to our US Bank account, unfortunately without making a profit. At the end of this period the Association had at its disposal, as a reserve, a sum equivalent to one year's running costs.

Proposed budget 2007-2009. As decided in 2006, dues will increase to € 58 for institutions and € 35 for individual members in 2008.

The Treasurer observed that it was wise for the Association to have at its disposal as a reserve a sum more or less equal to one years running costs. Membership is the main factor determining the Associations income, but price increases have to be taken into account as well.

The Board wants to secure our investments by selling our shares in the HSBC Global Investment Funds SICAV and transfer the value to our US Bank Account.

As our members need to be informed well in advance about a rise in subscription dues, he advised Council that it would need decide on the increase for 2009 this year. The Board preferred a gradual increase, annual if necessary, rather than a single, large increase. The Board proposes a small increase of the dues to € 59 and € 35.50 respectively in 2009.

Maria Calderisi wondered if such a small increase was worthwhile. The Treasurer replied that it was up to National Branches to decide whether or not to pass this on to their members. The President reiterated that it was better to have small increases and avoid, for example, the enormous increase suddenly imposed by the ICA.

Council unanimously approved the increase of dues to € 59 (institutional) and € 35.50 (individual) for 2009.

The Treasurer ended his report by thanking the 2006 auditors, Simeon Bodden and Joost van Gemert. He hoped that his successor would be able to announce that our membership had reached the 2000, something that was possible with the return to schedule of Fontes.
[Martie Severt will continue his duties as Treasurer while assisting Kathy Adamson in her new role. A message will be sent out on IAML-L when all the technicalities of the changeover of Treasurer have been completed.]

6. Elections for President and Vice-presidents

The Secretary General reported that the elections for President and Vice-Presidents had proceeded with very few problems. A revised ballot had been made available following the withdrawal of Chris Banks as a candidate for Vice-President, and great care was taken to ensure that no votes were double counted. There were no spoiled ballots, but four arrived too late for inclusion.

Postage costs had been minimized by including ballot papers with a mailout of Fontes. The candidates CVs were available on the website.

Later in the meeting the results were announced. Martie Severt was elected President, and Jim Cassaro was re-elected Vice-President for a second term. Three new Vice-Presidents were appointed; Jon Bagüés (Spain), Aurika Gergeleziu (Estonia), and Jutta Lambrecht (Germany).
The retiring Board members were John Roberts (Past-president), and Vice-Presidents Dominique Hausfater, Ruth Hellen and Federica Riva.

7. Appointment of new Treasurer

The Secretary General reported that the Search Committee (Roger Flury, Massimo Gentili-Tedeschi, Jim Cassaro and Martie Severt) had received three applications for the position of IAML Treasurer. Of these, Kathy Adamson was the most outstanding candidate and the only one with such an in-depth understanding of IAML on a national and international level. This had been demonstrated in her position as Treasurer of IAML UK and Ireland, and in her many other activities within IAML. She has also been a regular attendee of conferences, and is widely known and respected throughout the organisation.

Therefore the Search Committee had recommended to the Board that Kathy Adamson be proposed to Council as the new Treasurer of IAML for a 4-year term, commencing from the conclusion of the Sydney meeting.

This proposal was put to Council and approved unanimously.

8. Fontes Artis Musicae

The Editor of Fontes, Maureen Buja presented her report to Council.

'Last year at this time, Fontes was on the verge of releasing all the back issues. I'm pleased to report today that Fontes is up to date. The next issue that is scheduled to hit your mailboxes is issue 3, the July-September issue, for 2007. I cannot tell you how pleased I am about this.

I am pleased to announce that David Day has agreed to become the Advertising Manager for Fontes, effective immediately. I have requested that he find an assistant Adverstising Manager from another National Branch so that we can maximise our work with potential advertisers. If anyone is interested in this position, please speak with David Day.

You will have noticed a new column in Fontes that comes from the Corresponding Editors. This draws on our long and distinguished list of Contributing Editors from around the world and gives them a forum for telling the membership about interesting things from the musical world that happen in their areas. – we've had advance notice of the Nordic Baltic conference that follows this conference and a lovely piece documenting the 80th anniversary of the National Library of Norway. Here at the conference, we've had new correspnding Editors volunteer from Lithuania, the USA, the Netherlands and Germany. If anyone else would like to be active in Fontes, please see me or e-mail me after the conference.

I view this column as something that does not duplicate Michael Fingerhut's items in the Newsletter, but as a chance for the Contributing Editors to become involved in Fontes and for another way in which national chapters can participate in our journal. As the column develops, I think it will be easier to get the Contributing Editors to participate.

As a reminder, everyone who has presented reports should send them to Roger Flury at their earliest opportunity. We are trying to print the conference reports earlier and hope to gradually move them from appearing in issue 2 each year (which is nearly a year after the conference) to actually publishing them the same year as the conference. We can only do this with your help. Roger works with Michael Fingerhut and me to make sure that we will have the latest news from everyone, so as soon as you can send your reports to Roger, the more success we will have.

One of the topics for discussion for the past weeks has come from proposals from the Norwegian and Danish branches. One of these proposals concerned making Fontes an electronic journal. The Board has suggested an ad-hoc committee to study this proposal to examine all aspects of the question from costs to access.

Summary
So, in the past year, your mailboxes have been flooded with journal issues and now the pace will back off for a bit. The next issue you will see will be the Special Topics issue on South Africa, guest edited by Chris Walton. As a local contribution to the discussion on languages, the abstracts are in French, German, and English as usual, with an additional abstract in Zulu, as the principal language of the country. I am working on the next Special Topics issue being on Special and Private Music Libraries.

I would like to thank all the IAML members who made it possible to achieve what weve done so far: my book review editors Mary Black, Anna Pensaert, and John Redford; Dominique Hausfater, Wolfgang Krueger, and Thomas Kalk for their translation help; Pam Thompson for her guest-editing of a brilliant Russian issue; Chris Walton for his equally fine work on the South African issue, and all the IAML members who wrote articles or pointed articles to me. I've had many people coming from sessions here in Sydney giving me suggestions of articles to pursue and I really appreciate that help.

You can always reach me and I look forward to hearing from you.'

9. Electronic communications

a) IAML-L. Council received a short report from IAML-L administrator Bonna Boetcher from Cornell University (where the Listserv resides). The transfer to the new Lyrus software had gone smoothly and web capability could be on the horizon.

b) IAML Home Page. The webmaster, Gabriele Gamba, reported on the significant cosmetic changes to the website. He reminded members that there are more than 300 pages on the site, and many are still in need of translation, so volunteers are required. Those who miss the drop-down menus can log-in and re-instate them for their personalized homepage.

c) IAML Newsletter. Michel Fingerhut's report as editor of the Newsletter was brief and direct. If you want content, then provide it. The Newsletter is for IAML and about IAML.

10. Discussion of matters raised by the Danish and Norwegian Branches

The remainder of the 1st Council Meeting was given over to discussion of the proposals from the Norwegian and Danish Branches. Siren Steen and Ole Bisbjerg explained the background to these proposals, which were intended, not to cause offence, but to stimulate discussion on a new vision for IAML, utilizing all the technologies that are now available to us. He suggested that a survey would be a good way to engage the wider membership in the discussion and get them to contribute their ideas on the future of IAML.

The proposals called for discussion on the introduction of electronic voting for Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections, and also for chairs of Professional Branches and Commissions. They also proposed a transfer of our journal Fontes to an electronic format.

The lively response to these proposals on IAML-L, the blog and at the Council meeting indicated that there was intense interest and strong feeling throughout the organization. Siren Steen commented that debate for change was nothing new; it was an ongoing process and a necessity. However, she did not see the changes to Fontes happening overnight, but over a period of perhaps 5-10 years.

The discussion surrounding the election process revealed that the introduction of an electronic voting system would be most complicated for the election of Branch and Commission chairs, because it would also entail a change to the whole process of these elections. And since they were due to be held next year, there was not enough time to enact any significant changes.

In the discussion on Fontes, the digital divide and the access to back issues was raised by several members. Solutions such as continuing to provide both print and electronic copies were discussed. Maureen Buja had obtained some general costings from A-R editions that showed the per copy cost of Fontes would increase dramatically if fewer copies were printed. Another concern with an electronic-only version of Fontes was who within IAML would be authorized to access it when the membership was an institutional one?

Further debate was held over for the 2nd Council meeting, by which time there had been an informal discussion session for those interested in continuing the debate outside of Council.

The President presented a proposal that had emerged from discussion by the Board and the Publications Committee. Two ad-hoc working groups could be established to look at the two issues. The first, would examine the issues surrounding voting for the Board and the Branch & Commission Chairs. This would also require an examination of the practicalities of electronic voting.

Membership of the first ad-hoc committee should reflect the expertise required to cover the topic. It was suggested that representatives of the Constitution and IT Committees should participate, as well as the Treasurer and Secretary General, since they are closely involved in the election process.

The second ad-hoc committee could include representatives of the Publications and IT Committees, the Editor of Fontes, the Treasurer and others with relevant publications experience.

It was pointed out that the Council needs only to approve the formation of these committees. The Board can then constitute them as it sees fit, and present them with deadlines.

The proposal to establish these 2 ad-hoc committees was put to Council by the President and seconded by Antony Gordon. It was passed unanimously.

11. IAML's relationship with other organisations

a) IFLA. Aurika Gergeleziu reported on the IFLA meeting that she attended in Seoul in 2006. She has been nominated to the Standing Committee of the Bibliography Section for 2007-2011, and will also be attending the next IFLA meeting in Durban South Africa, where again she will act as our official representative with voting rights on behalf of IAML.

b) ISO. Gerry Ostrove had been asked to act as our liaison person with the International Standards Organisation (ISO) and was going to give this some thought. The role is currently undertaken by the Secretary General (who feels out of his depth!).

c) IMC. The next International Music Council (IMC) meeting is scheduled for 11-14 October in Beijing. Martie Severt will be attending on behalf of IAML

d) EBLIDA. Richard Chesser reported that there had been a European Commission call for comments on the regulation of online music services. He contributed to a document produced by EBLIDA in response to the Commission. EBLIDA is the European Bureau of Library and Information Documentation Associations. He was aware that there was not enough time to canvas all the views of IAML members, and wants to find a way of making EBLIDA documents more accessible.

e) ICA. The IAML Archivist, Inger Enquist, reported that the International Council of Archives had a new Secretary General. A major issue was the substantial increase in their membership fees, which had been raised from €50 to €600.

f) IAMIC. The Secretary General reported that he had attended several events at the recent annual conference of IAMIC held in Wellington.

g) IASA. No report.

h) ISMN. The following report was received in March from Dr Walravens:

"The International Standard Music Number (ISO 10957) is well-known to IAML colleagues as the system was originally developed and proposed by the IAML UK Branch, and IAML has been instrumental in disseminating it worldwide. Also, Fontes will publish an account of ISMN and its current status and developments. Therefore an update may suffice now:

The ISMN standard has been under revision for sme time. Due to unfortunate circumstances (connected with the secretariat of ISO TC46 SC9) the current draft which was worked out at the spring 2006 meeting of ISO TC46 was only circulated for voting at the end of December, 2006, and the voting period will end at the end of March, 2007. Therefore it is still time to make supportive statements through national standard bodies.

The current draft follows the view of the user communities that advocate a 13-digit structure in analogy to ISBN. This is not major change in practical terms as the 13-digit form is identical with the bar-coded version. In contrast to ISBN, the ISMN does not require a change of the check digit. The new ISMN would begin with 979-0- instead of M-.

There are about 50 countries now representing the user community – most countries of Europe and a number of countries all over the world. Among the new members are the Russian Federation, Belgium and Singapore. Negotiations with the US are still under way (Library of Congress). China expressed interest.

The next ISMN Panel (AGM of the user community) will take place in Oslo, on May 31 and June 1, 2007, by the kind invitation of the National Library of Norway. Guests are welcome!

So far the International ISMN Agency was a small unit within the State Library of the Prussian Cultural Foundation. The Foundation decided to put the Agency on its own feet, and therefore ISMN will be an independent association. As of October 2006 the International ISMN Agency is registered as an association («e. V.») under German law, and is recognised as a charity. The ISMN agencies and other organisation supporting the music sector are welcome to join.

The present chairman is Hartmut Walravens (Berlin State Library), deputy chairman Joachim Jaenecke (Berlin State Library), treasurer Bettina von Seyfried (German Music Archives, German National Library). We expect the Board to become more international in the future but for the registration it was easier to rely on local members.

ISMN funding has been a matter of frequent discussions. At the Helsinki meeting it was agreed that a quota system should be based on objective indicators like the GNP / GNI and the number of annual music publications. A list of contributions based on these factors has been prepared and will be discussed and passed at the Oslo AGM.

The results of the current standard revision will be discussed at the forthcoming ISO TC46 meeting at Santiago de Compostela (May 12-17). Hopefully there will be a general agreement. That would mean that the next voting could follow almost immediately - this ballot would only allow yes or no votes but no detailed comments. As the previous ballot did not yield any 'No' vote, we may be optimistic ..."

12. Publications Committee

On behalf of the Publications Committee, John Roberts reported that the guidelines for publishing on the IAML website were now approved and he urged members to go online and read them as soon as possible.

13. Outreach Committee

Ruth Hellen presented her last report as Chair of the Outreach Committee. Four colleagues had been supported to attend the Sydney Conference. Reports on outreach activities from 15 national branches were once again available in a newsletter. She thanked all those who had helped with outreach, especially her committee members and the conference organizers.

14. Copyright Committee

The Chair of the Copyright Committee, Federica Riva, was unable to attend conference, but Richard Chesser reported that work on the questionnaire was still continuing behind the scenes.

15. Working Group on Access to Music Archives

The Working Group on Access to Music Archives has had a busy year. Judy Tsou reported that although a grant application for project funding was unsuccessful, the funding agency was interested in our model of using a single portal to search for music archival information from multiple databases. The Working Group intends to reapply for funding in early December.

In the meantime, a survey to ascertain the scope of the project has been trialed with the support of the University of Washington, and an announcement will be made on IAML-L when the full survey is ready. The Group is also drafting a number of documents pertaining to the local database that they will be designing for institutions lacking the ability to do this for themselves.

16. Programme Committee

Jim Cassaro reported on the work of the Programme Committee and described the new process for submitting paper proposals on the website. The purpose of this is to enable the Committee to have a much better overview of all the proposals and to have the flexibility to design a well-balanced programme.
The programme for Naples is already shaping up well. For the first time, there will be poster sessions which it is hoped will encourage younger members to participate in a less formal environment.

17. Constitution Committee

No issues had arisen that required the Committee to meet at Conference.

18. Future conferences

The Secretary General asked Council to accept invitations received from Canada and the USA.

The proposal that we meet in those two countries was approved unanimously.

In order to avoid holding the conference in North America in two consecutive years, some rescheduling of other conferences was necessary. He thanked those National Branches who had so generously agreed to move back or forward one year.

We now had a schedule of exciting locations and a more acceptable geographic spread:

2008 Italy, Naples, 20-25 July
2009 Netherlands, Amsterdam, 5-10 July (joint-conference with IMS)
2010 Russia, Moscow
2011 Ireland, Dublin, 24-29 July
2012 Canada (location to be advised)
2013 Denmark, Århus
2014 Austria, Vienna
2015 USA, New York

19. Any other business

RILM. Veslemöy Heintz reported that RILM Commission mixte has invited the International Council for Traditional Music to be a third RILM sponsoring body, to join with IAML and the IMS. The ICTM has accepted their invitation. This news was warmly welcomed by Council. In order to keep the Commission mixte at a manageable size, the CM has decided to reduce the number of sponsoring body representatives from 5 to 4.

Next AGM. The President asked Council to approve the holding of our next General Assembly in Naples in July 2008.

This was passed with 1 abstention.

The meeting adjourned.