Music Library Association Conference 2023

The definition of a research collection was surely much clearer in the 1940s when Howard Hanson, Dean of the Eastman School of Music, informed Ruth Taiko Watanabe upon her appointment as Sibley’s Head Librarian that she would be expected to “buy everything, and I mean everything.” In the decades since, university libraries proliferated, music departments grew, and technology revolutionized the way users would interact with books, scores, audio, video, periodicals, and reference works. Shifts in patron attitudes have resulted in the expectation that information should be available with the click of a mouse. Networks of collections shared via interlibrary loan mean that a selector seemingly has less incentive to attempt comprehensive development, even for materials that would be used at their own institution. Perhaps most importantly a perpetual state of austerity has impacted how much of “everything” any single library can manage to buy. A focus on acquiring long-neglected works by underrepresented authors and composers has further shattered myths of comprehensiveness.

This panel will bring together selectors from four “R1” libraries, two private and two public, who have developed individual philosophies around what a research collection is and should be. Participants will respond to the following questions: 1) How would you define “research collection,” and how has that changed over your career, if at all? How have licensing restrictions surrounding streaming media and the proliferation of digital materials marketed to individuals affected the role of the library if at all? 2) What responsibility do selectors of research collections have toward promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion? The panelists will each take approximately 10 minutes total to answer and then address follow up questions from the audience, the moderator, and each other. Attendees will be invited to offer their own answers to the given questions, which will open discussion to folks from all kinds and sizes of libraries. The panel will be interactive, and the proposal relates to collection development and management as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion, two of the most requested topics of the last post-conference survey.