Putting It Together

Happy Fall Semester! I was working diligently all summer to get the ECSU Music Library ready for Fall, which is our first full semester to be open. It is exciting to go back and see how the library has progressed visually. Here are the latest pictures:

In this last picture, you can see that scores have been expanded to two bookshelves. There is quite a bit of open space as I am still cataloging and have roughly 200 more scores to add. I was able to add a shelf of music reference (on the left). Of course, that is not all of our music reference items, which are still mostly  located in our main library. I am using this shelf for recent reference order requests by Faculty and big ticket items that don’t circulate. Eventually, I would like to move the majority of the music reference items into the Music Library, save for bound serials and larger collected works. This will be a part of a large scale music weeding project, which I will start once I have a solid semester of circulation statistics.

Not pictured is a music career section, which is located at the back of the group study table shown in third picture. This is a permanent display collection, similar to a browse section. It highlights books on careers in music, self-promotion and legal guides, and wellness for musicians. An example of a few titles in the collection are:

• Project Management for Musicians- Jonathan Feist  ISBN: 9780876391358
• The Inner Game of Music- Barry Green  ISBN: 9780385231268
• The Balanced Musician- Lesley Sisterhen McAllister  ISBN: 9780810882935
• Careers for Music Lovers & Other Tuneful Types- Jeff Johnson  ISBN: 9780071405751

My plans for this section is to assign it to a student worker to keep updated, since it is a small collection. Every semester I will have them check anything 3 or more years old to see if there is an updated edition, as well as make other order suggestions. I have found that the more I involve my student workers in collection development, the more they talk about the Music Library to their peers.

Getting To Know You

The Music Library is in its third week of being open to students. We had a strong start with roughly 40 student visits in the first two weeks, which is great considering it is near the end of the semester. To help keep track of visits, we use sign-in sheets with date, time, name and reason for visit. The sheets will help to decide what are the best hours to be open, what are the resources most students are interested in, and provide documentation for Title III funding. You can download a copy of the sign-in sheet here, if you’d like to use it. It is in word document format.

I would also like to take this time to thank the first “crew” of the ECSU Music Library: student workers Justin Garland & Jimmie Rodgers, and Interim Music Librarian Susan Corell-Hankinson.

Justin, Jimmie, Stephanie, Susan

 

 

They were such a great help in getting things ready before I arrived, as well as continued support. Of course, we had a lot of help from the G.R. Little Library staff too! Needless to say, we had a great time getting everything together…

Music Library Soft Opening

It has been quite a month for me since my last post! I ended up spending most of March dealing with a death in the family, which took me away from work for 3 weeks out of the month and put me behind 2 weeks. Here is what the library looked like before I left:

Basically, I had 1 shelf of cataloged scores, 1 shelf of uncatalogued scores, and a large pile of discards. Once I got back, I was able to rally and modify the location of enough books from the main library to do a “soft opening” on April 22nd. I call it a soft opening because I do not have a complete catalog of items yet, but students can use the Library room and check out items that are available. The shelf of uncatalogued items can be browsed and cataloged on request. There will be a “Grand Opening” in the fall when the Music Library is complete. This will include a small public celebration, which the local arts community will be invited to attend.

In case anyone is wondering about the process of moving the items, here is the general flow:

I spent any work hours at the main G. R. Little Library doing group item modifications and marking the items’ current location to “In Process” in SirsiDynix Symphony Workflows. Marking the items In Process allowed the items to be searched, but let other librarians know they weren’t on the shelf, in case a student needed the item. I would also take this time to double-check if scores were marked correctly in the item categories, for easier catalog searches, and if there were any other issues, such as repair needs, call number errors, etc. The following day I would go back to G.R. Little with a student worker and box up the items (hopefully keeping them in order!) and load 4-8 boxes into my poor Chevy Aveo to transport to the Music Library. Once in the Music Library, I would again scan the books and change the current location to the Music Library. If I hadn’t already stamped the books with the Music Library stamps this would happen now, and I would make sure they were in correct order before they went on the shelf.

It seems like a lot of back and forth, but I needed to make the move gradually due to my limited space. As mentioned in my first two posts, I only have 10 tall shelves and decided to start with the M and ML classification items. Now that I have 3/4 of those items in the Music Library, I can see that I may be able to bring over some voice and instrument methods and theory books, which had been requested by faculty. The music education books will have to stay in the main library, which makes sense as they are being utilized by two departments (music and education).

As of opening week, I am pleased to say that the ECSU Music Library now looks like this:

You’ll see in the last picture that I have some boxes of free sheet music on a table for students to take as an opening week gift. Most of the items are older duplicates or in less than great shape, but can still be useful. It has been very successful in getting people in to visit and see how different the Music Library is from the last time they had access. The faculty have also been stopping by and we even had them helping the students go through the music to pick out the best pieces for them. A very positive start!