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Finland, report 1996

At the end of 1996, the Finnish Branch had 67 members, of which 49 represented different institutions and of whom 19 were individual members. This was a loss of one member since 1995. The Board members in 1996 were: Chair, Heikki Poroila (Vantaa City Library); Vice chair, Risto Korhonen (Finnish Music Information Center); Secretary & Treasurer Irmeli Koskirnies (Library of Sibelius Academy); Seija Lappalainen (University of Helsinki. Department of Musicology), Kaisu Ollila (Jyväskylä University Library), Leena Pärssinen (Helsinki University Library), Kyösti Mäkelä (Jyväskylä City Library), Irmeli Koskirnies (Library of Sibelius Academy), Maarit Koskela (Helsinki City Library), Eeva-Liisa Sankola (Finnish Broadcasting Company, Record Library), Jukka Tammilehto (Library Service Ltd) , and Pirjo Hakuni (Tampere City Library). The board held seven meetings during 1996. The annual meeting was held at the Computer and Arts Center CARTES in Espoo City.

Information was provided to the members by the branch's journal Intervalli (lSSN 0785-2843). Four issues (all in Finnish) were published (total number of pages was 154, and about 230 copies of each were printed and circulated). The editors of Intervalli were Maarit Koskela (chief) and Heikki Poroila. Among the topics in 1996 were: A National Survey on Lending of Sound Recordings in Music Libraries; New Information about Sibelius' Skogsrået; Studying of the Soundscape, The Finnish Music Bibliography 1995; Copyright and Music Libraries.

Six titles, all in Finnish (titles given are rough translations), were published in the series Suomen musiikkikirjastoyhdistyksen julkaisusarja (ISSM 0780-0322, ISBN 951-8903-). The editor of the series was Heikki Poroila. The publications were:

  • 50. Catalogue of works with uniform titles - Jean Sibelius by Heikki Poroila.
  • 53. Cataloguing of music materials with FINMARC - a Handbook by the National Group for Cataloguing and Classification of Music.
  • 54. Catalogue of works with uniform titles - Franz Liszt by Heikki Poroila.
  • 55. Catalogue of works with uniform titles - Leevi Madetoja and Oskar Merikanto by Heikki Poroila.
  • 61. Catalogue of works with uniform titles - J. S. Bach by Heikki Poroila.
  • 62. Catalogue of works with uniform titles - W. A. Mozart by Heikki Poroila.

International activities of the Branch outside the annual meeting in Perugia focused on the continuing cooperation with the Estonian Branch. Pirjo Hakuni and Heikki Poroila conducted a training weekend in Pärnu (southern Estonia) with 20 Estonian music librarians. In a Bibliotheca Baltica meeting in Riga in May there was a short overview about the Finnish music libraries, prepared by Heikki Poroila.

An annual Music Library Award was granted for the second time. In 1996 it was granted to the staff of the music department of Tampere City Library for their pioneering work in the public music library field.

A postcard campaign was carried out in Finnish public libraries in February. About 3,000 postcards were distributed to the library users to be mailed back to the Finnish IAML Branch. The postcards asked "What is the idea of music libraries? Is there any idea in music libraries?" The feedback was not enormous, but interesting. Most people sending their opinions were happy with the library services, but especially younger members of the communities asked for more rap, techno, and heavy rock CDs.

The Web site of the Branch was officially opened in May (http://www.kaapeli.fi/~musakir). The international version of this site should be ready in the end of 1997.

Heikki Poroila
Chair, Finnish Branch