IAML International Association of Music Libraries

This past year has been a busy one for national music conferences in Canada. In February 2005, CAML joined the Music Library Association (MLA) at its 74th annual American conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, a mere 9 months after CAML's own annual conference in May 2004, where members met with their Canadian University Music Society (CUMS) faculty colleagues at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta.

Major areas of concern for the CAML board in 2004/05 included constitutional changes that were recently approved, procedures manual revitalization, board restructuring, and a greater advocacy role on behalf of music libraries, archives and documentation centres in Canada. The latter was demonstrated this past winter with the CAML board writing a letter on behalf of a northern music library colleague whose library and affiliated music program were in danger of being closed by the university administration. We are happy to report that further study is being undertaken to make recommendations that may stave off a deleterious closure of such a beneficial program in northern Ontario.

Our newly-structured board as of 1 June 2005 consists of seven officers: 4 elected: President (2-year position), Past President (1 year position) or President-Elect (to be elected in alternate years), Secretary and one Member-at-Large, and 3 appointed officers: Treasurer, Membership Secretary and Communications Officer, who can be either the CAML Review editor or CAML webmaster.

Current CAML membership stands at 97, with 41 institutional and 56 individual members, of whom 26 are also members of IAML. Eight additional institutions subscribe solely to the CAML Review. Due to a constrained budget in 2004, CAML could not offer a travel award to assist a member to attend the annual conference. Future support for travel awards and board member travel to meetings will be dependent on CAML's annual finances. It is a situation we would like to see remedied by increasing our membership base.

Our publication, the CAML Review / Revue de l'ACBM is in its thirty-third volume. Under the direction of editor Desmond Maley, it is published three times a year, and is indexed in The Music Index, with book and CD reviews indexed in RILM. CAML Review is also self-indexed, thanks to long-time member Kathleen McMorrow, and a cumulative index is available on our website at http://www.yorku.ca/caml/en/review.htm. Issues include articles, reports, conference notes, membership news and book and sound recording reviews, chiefly of Canadian music, composers and performers.

Daniel Paradis, Chair, CAML Cataloguing Committee, is representing the Canadian Cataloguing Committee on a working group of the Joint Steering Committee for the Revision of AACR (now RDA: Resource Description and Access) to study General Material Designation (GMD) and Special Material Designation. A report is expected by 1 August 2005.

In May 2004, Carleton University music professor Elaine Keillor was the recipient of CAML's Third Helmut Kallmann Award for Distinguished Service relating to music libraries and archives, for outstanding contributions in documenting and improving access to resources in Canadian music.

The CAML Project Committee funded a digitization project of British Columbia sheet music which CAML member Terry Horner brought to fruition in 2004 at http://www.library.ubc.ca/music/bcmusic/default.htm. Finale notation was used to create PDF sheet music files and MIDI sound files of approximately 155 pieces of sheet music about the province of British Columbia, its cities, people, geographical features and social history.

Our website http://www.yorku.ca/caml/ is expected to undergo a content review, to increase coverage from the CAML Review and provide other information pertinent to music libraries, archives and documentation centres, such as links to Canadian copyright information and music blogs or websites.

Our next conference is in Toronto at York University, 27 May through 4 June 2006, where we will meet again with music faculty colleagues from CUMS.

In general, I think the Association has had a good year with lots of professional interaction, both with Canadian university music faculty and American music library colleagues. CAML looks forward to expanding its role in the field of Canadian music through its communication channels of the CAML Review, website and CANMUS-L listserv.

Lucinda Walls
President, IAML (Canada)

• More reports for 2005