Archives and Documentation Centres Branch Report

The Archives and Documentation Centres Branch presented one session at the Edinburgh conference. Four speakers spoke on four different music projects in the United Kingdom. David Thomas, Head of the Information and Records Department at the Public Record Office, spoke about online access to archives catalogs, focusing on the Public Records Office’s own catalog http://www.pro.gov.uk/ and the A2A program http://www.pro.gov.uk/a2a/PODS/search.htm which will provide web access to catalogs of local archives throughout England by 2002. The title of his talk was "Access to Archives: A Programme to Provide a Joint Catalogue for English Record Offices."

Jacquie Kavanagh, who has worked for the BBC Written Archives Centre in Caversham since 1974, introduced us to the richness of the BBC’s written archives and how it can be used as a research tool in music. Its particular strengths are in twentieth century biography and bibliography. She also mounted a mini-exhibit of sample materials from the archives for viewing after her talk. The title of her talk was "A Source of Great Delight: Music in the BBC’s Written Archives."

Peter Linnitt, assistant manager of the BBC Sheet Music Library, spoke about Project Mildred (Music In Libraries: Directory/REsource Discovery), which is an in-progress directory of music resources in United Kingdom libraries. The project covers contact and access information to notes on collection strengths. He is currently in the preliminary stage of the project, having just distributed questionnaires to the IAML-UK executive committee for approval. His talk was entitled "Mildred: A Directory of Music Resources in British Libraries."

Our final speaker was Chris Banks, the secretary of the Archives and Documentation Centres Branch, and Curator of Manuscript Music and Deputy Head of the Music Collections at the British Library; she spoke about the British Library’s Manuscripts OnLine CATalog, MOLCAT http://molcat.bl.uk. She traced the history of the project and outlined the relationship between the new online catalog and existing print catalogs.

The session was attended by about 80 people and a lively question-and-answer session followed. Next year, the Archives and Documentation Centres Branch will be presenting a session on French music archives.

Judy Tsou, Chair