We are certainly going through a very particular year. At this time of year we had planned to organize the IFLAcamp 8 in Dublin, Ireland, for which we had many surprises but as we all know we must save our hopes for next year. However, our desire to communicate with you generates great ideas. It occurred to us to organize in a virtual way our annual Business Meeting where we tell who we are, what we do and we invite all of you who want to add ideas and energy to participate in the New Professionals’ group. But since we wanted to celebrate the diversity of our group and that the largest number of people could access our talks, we came up with the NPSIG Business Meetings Week in multiple languages!
And it certainly was a great effort. We know how complicated it was to coordinate a single international meeting, thinking of holding 4 successive meetings in 7 different languages was multiplying the complications, but if there was something we like, it was the challenges!
The first day was the business meeting in English, coordinated by our convenor Magdalena Gomulka and Paria Tajallipour, who was also in charge of offering a talk in Persian language. Our secretary Marija Simunovic, and Amber Cox were there as a technical support: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg1SJOknnK0&t=303s
The second day was dedicated to Slavic languages audience: Magdalena spoke in Polish and Marija in Croatian, again present at the meeting, joined by Jelena Vuksanovic in Serbian. Very good meeting! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGskvc3zq68
On the third day the language of the meeting was French, and it was in charge of Antoine Torrens and Assane Fall from the NPSIG Leadership Team (Assane was this person who came up with the great idea of multiple languages, thanks Assane!). In the technician support was Magdalena. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KykDSiHa8sk
And the last day was dedicated to the Spanish-speaking audience. The talk was given by Ruth Navarro and Andrés Reinoso. Magdalena and Marija were in technical support. There were many people attending this meeting! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1826S4zXUYo&t=275s
We must highlight the special presence of dear Loida García-Febo, founder of our group 16 years ago, who was introducing the talks about IFLA and NPSIG on the first day (in English) and the last day (in Spanish). Her presence was very appreciated by the public and especially by the NPSIG team . And we also want to highlight our Convenor Magdalena, who showed her command of several languages, welcoming us in English, Polish, Croatian, French and Spanish!
In this post we summarized recordings of all meetings for those who want to see it. We’re waiting with the door open to all the enthusiastic new professionals who want to work with us. To join this great group you need only write to our mail npsig.ifla@gmail.com and then we will start contributing ideas and energy together!
The great tradition is to meet the New Professionals Special Interest Group with any person interested in our activities. During this time you find out more who we are and what we are doing, what we achieved and what is our plan for the next year. It is also true that we usually organize a business meeting during the IFLA Congress on August, and now, we don’t want to break this rule!
In coming days we would like to invite you to participate in the NPSIG business meeting in August. And it will not be only one meeting but a few! We organize a special event: the NPSIG Business Meetings Week. You will have chance to meet online the NPSIG team and ask them about what you want.
Languages of meetings
If you have ever worried about understanding the language of meeting, this time you should not. We will talk in English, French, Spanish, Polish, Croatian, Serbian and Persian as well! Just only check when the meeting in your language is organizing and come!
Schedule
Day
Time (CEST)
Language
Place
25 August
3 pm
English and Persian
NPSIG Youtube
26 August
6 pm
Croatian, Polish and Serbian
NPSIG Youtube
27 August
6 pm
French
NPSIG Youtube
28 August
8 pm
Spanish
NPSIG Youtube
All meeting hours are in the CEST time zone (the Central European Summer Time). Please check your time in the Time Zone Converter.
Registration
There is no registration. You don’t have to register to our meetings and download apps. Our meetings will be held at our channel on the Youtube platform: the NSPIG IFLA channel.
NPSIG IFLA @Youtube
How to participate in the online meeting
There are five tips which help you connect during our business meetings:
In this webinar, experts from the field will highlight five different aspects of music librarianship. The presentations will only cover a fraction of the wide scope of music libraries, but through these varied insights we hope to provide a good starting-point for anybody interested to learn more about this fascinating field of librarianship.
When?
Date/time: Monday, September 29th 2020 at 4:00 pm CEST 7 am PT 9 am CT 10 am ET (check your time zones here: https://www.timeanddate.com/)
An Introduction to IAML, the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres (Anders Cato, IAML Secretary General, Pia Shekhter, IAML President-Elect)
Local music collections in libraries (public, community, and academic): the Canadian context (Carolyn Doi, University of Saskatchewan, Sean Luyk, University of Alberta, Canada)
Can I listen to that online? Providing access to AV collections (Jonathan Manton, Music Librarian for Digital and Access Services, Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, Yale University, USA)
Innovative music services in a public library setting: Three examples from Qatar National Library (Sebastian Wilke, Head of Central Music Library, Frankfurt Public Library, Germany)
The 4 R-projects of international music research (Barbara Dobbs Mackenzie, Executive Director, Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM)
Anders Cato: works as Senior Advisor at the Unit for Literature and Libraries within the Danish Agency for Culture and Palaces (Slots- og Kulturstyrelsen) in Copenhagen since 2014. The Agency belongs to the Ministry of Culture in Denmark and governs most of Danish cultural life. Even though he works in Denmark, he is actually Swedish, and before coming to Denmark, he tried a bit of everything in the Swedish library world, from being a music cataloguer at BTJ, a Swedish private company serving the public libraries, to being a Head of the National Bibliography at the National Library and Head of Cataloguing there for 10 years. He has a music librarian degree and the work of the music library world has always been very close to his heart, and because of that he has always tried to stay involved in IAML, even though it has not always been my main profession.
Carolyn Doi, Associate Librarian, University of Saskatchewan Carolyn Doi (A.V.C.M, B.Mus., MLIS) is the Music Librarian at the University Library, University of Saskatchewan. Her research is focused on special collections in music libraries, music and place, and local music collecting. Carolyn is the Primary Investigator on the SSHRC supported project Sounds of Home: Exploring Local Music Collections and Collecting Practices in Canada.
Jonathan Manton is Music Librarian for Digital and Access Services at the Gilmore Music Library at Yale University. In this role he oversees a wide range of Digital Services, including digitization, digital preservation and digital access initiatives. He also manages archival arrangement and description projects and practices for the library. Before joining Yale, Jonathan was Sound Archives Librarian at Stanford University’s Archive of Recorded Sound and, before that, Technical Support Officer for the Britten Thematic Catalogue Project at the Britten-Pears Foundation in the United Kingdom. Jonathan received his MSc in Information and Library Management from the School of Computing, Engineering, and Information Sciences at the University of Northumbria, UK and MMus in Electroacoustic Music and Sonic Arts from the University of East Anglia, UK. Jonathan gained certification as a Digital Archives Specialist by the Society of American Archivists in 2017. He is the former Chair of the Emerging Technologies and Services Committee for the Music Library Association and is the current Chair of the AV Subject Section for the International Association of Music Libraries. He has published articles in both Brio (International Association of Music Libraries, UK) and Notes (Music Library Association, USA) respectively.
Sebastian Wilke is the new Head of the Central Music Library at Frankfurt Public Library in Frankfurt, Germany. From 2014 till May 2020, he worked as Senior Information Services Librarian at Qatar National Library in the Middle East where he established the library’s music collection and a range of innovative music services. He has extensive experience in international library projects and has been taking on various roles in library associations and initiatives on a national and international level. Sebastian has served as IFLA NPSIG Convenor from 2009 to 2014. He is currently an officer of the IAML Advocacy Committee and Secretary of the IAML Public Libraries Section. More information on his professional activities can be found at https://sebastianwilke.wordpress.com/
Barbara Dobbs Mackenzie is Executive Director of Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), a not-for-profit organization that documents and disseminates music research worldwide, across all disciplinary, cultural, and linguistic boundaries. She is also a Director of the Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation, a scholarly facility of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and is Past President the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres (IAML). A non-teaching faculty member of the Ph.D. Program in Music at the CUNY Graduate Center, Mackenzie serves on its Executive Committee. She is a Past President of NFAIS (National Federation of Advanced Information Services), a global non-profit membership organization serving those who create, aggregate, and organize authoritative information online. Mackenzie holds a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Michigan.
The following is a guest post by Mary Marques. Mary currently works with REFORMA Northeast. More information, including links to her various projects, is included at the bottom of the post.
“In the midst of planning for this year’s conference, the global pandemic hit. I proposed to the team the idea of moving the conference online, something new for all of us, and I’m proud to say everyone joined it and supported the idea, and we have been working hard, learning, and having fun along the way,” stated Adriana Blancarte-Hayward, President of REFORMA Northeast (RNE) 2019-2020 in her opening welcome remarks. With this statement, she emphasized the challenges ahead, as an organizing committee, into navigating new and unexpected waters. The journey of the 16th Annual Joint Mini-Conference, and First Virtual Gathering, started delineating the basics, laying out a detailed plan for a four hours virtual conference, including 5 networking sessions, without a how-to-do manual.
16th Annual Joint Mini-Conference, and First Virtual Gathering Committee Members. From left to right and top to button: Adriana Blancarte-Hayward, Asunción Cora, Louis Muñoz, Linda Caycedo, Roxana Benavidez, Manuel Figueroa, Libbhy Romero, Tania-María Ríos, Elisa García, Fred Gitner, Mary Marques and Tess Tobin. (Photo:Linda Caycedo)
“The global pandemic made us rethink the way we create, collaborate, and share content. We took this challenge with positivism, and the desire to learn on-the-go, in a new level of digital culture and digital literacy. Librarians must adapt to new environments, very quickly, and transform in-person library services, and professional content, to various digital platforms engaging with the community in a new level of digital services not seen before. This conference was the reflection of the opportunity to grow as library professionals because we want to serve our community,” mentioned Mary Marques, Library Coordinator for the Free Library of Philadelphia and current Chair of the REFORMA NortheastLeadership Institute.
The virtual conference started with the Land Acknowledgment presented by Louis Muñoz, Past President of the REFORMA Northeast Chapter and currently an ALA Councilor-at-Large : “Before we start this year’s Joint Mini-Conference, we wish to make a simple land acknowledgement to recognize and respect the traditional indigenous inhabitants and cultures of the lands from which each of us in today’s virtual conference is participating, wherever you may be, and to honor the past, present, and future legacies of those peoples.”
Louis Muñoz, Past President of RNE and ALA Councilor-at-Large. (Photo: Linda Caycedo)
The hard work of two months were reflected on the day of the conference with presenters that represented different voices. The Keynote Speaker, Richard Ashby Jr., BCALA President 2018-2020 addressed the attendees with a powerful message about freedom, social and community emancipation. He stated during the Juneteenth Celebration Acknowledgment: “Be proactive in your freedom.” He highlighted the need to reflect about the social impact of what “freedom” means at the individual and community levels.
Richard Ashby Jr., BCALA President 2018-2020. (Photo Linda Caycedo)
Rhonda Evans presented “The Power of Libraries in Times of Crisis,” reflecting on how libraries throughout history supported the community. “Freedom Libraries,” she stated, provided access to books, black history and children programs. Through the presentation she mentioned that people will always need libraries, and the librarians must embrace the unknown and adapt to new challenges, support each other and stay connected.
The rest of the presentations touched unique perspectives: Alex Gil presented “Librarian Nimble Tents for Social Justice and Moments of Crisis,” highlighted the importance of data and maps in times of crisis. Latanya N. Jenkins and Vitalina A. Nova presented “Pre-crisis & Post-crisis: Partnering with a Mayor’s 2020 Census Response Initiative to Leverage Civic Engagement.” The program followed with the Wellness break, the presentation “La Biblioteca in Time of Crisis,” the author panel with the topic “The immigrant experience,” and closing the online event with the REFORMA Northeast Awards, the closing remarks and the networking session. The replay of the conference can be viewed in the RNE youtube channel and you can visit the 16th Annual Joint Mini-Conference for the detailed information of the program.
Mary Marquesworks as multilingual Library Coordinator at the Free Library of Philadelphia (FLP). Mary served as REFORMA Northeast (RNE) President for 2015-2016; currently, she supports RNE as the Chair of the Leadership Institute. Mary holds a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science from Clarion University (USA), and a second Master’s Degree in Bilingual/Bicultural Studies from La Salle University (USA), and a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Science, Journalism, from Inca Garcilaso de la Vega University (Peru). Mary is passionate about diversity, culture awareness and cross-cultural communication in libraries. Some of herblogs posting are in the IFLA, New Professionals Special Interest Group (NPSIG) webpage and the FLP website. She co-presented at PLA 2012 “Total Branch Makeover: A Six Months Action Plan” and PLA 2028 “Curious About #FreeLibraryofPride: A Successful Collaborative Story.” In her volunteer time, Mary writes for Impacto Newspaper and leads the Board of Acción Colombia. She loves to travel and to learn about other cultures and traditions. Also, she adores capturing special moments with her creative photography and enjoys being in contact with nature throughout practising road biking with her husband. Contact: marquesm@freelibrary.org.
And if you were one of the 220 participants (!) of this event, please fill this brief survey (10 minutes) with 10 questions by July 21st: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HVS56DM
We thank the IFLA CPDWL team, NPSIG team, ALA team and we wait for you in our next webinar!
Whether you are brand new in the library field or already have several years of experience, it’s likely that you have encountered a workplace challenge, project, initiative, or professional development pursuit that really needed support from others in the library field. But how do you find others, network, and build those connections, when you may not know exactly who or what you’re looking for? How do you establish a network of professionals who share the same interests, professional development goals, or time-sensitive workplace challenges, and are willing to connect and collaborate?
Jonathan Manton is Music Librarian for Digital and Access Services at the 
Sebastian Wilke is the new Head of the Central Music Library at 
Barbara Dobbs Mackenzie is Executive Director of 
