John Wheatley's Group Reflection

As a group we quickly mastered the brief, establishing a collection development policy, and delegating the necessary tasks. Site-visits were carried out in relevant libraries, and interviews conducted with librarians/archivists. From my own point of view, it was both an absolute pleasure, and huge learning experience, to interview Terry Moylan from Na Píobairí Uilleann. The final two weeks of the semester have been allocated to trying up loose ends and posting everything up on the group wiki for the event on December 3^rd – the day of reckoning.

Having a musical background (not to mention a lifelong passion for Irish traditional music) made this project all the more interesting for me. As such, I felt it was particularly important to treat the subject with the integrity it deserves. I must admit to being somewhat apprehensive of the approach to be taken, given the hijacking of Irish traditional music over the years by a multitude of impostors. Thankfully these fears proved unfounded.

The blog exhibits a solid understanding of the chosen subject with interviews, biographical pieces and music videos representative of some influential styles within the Irish music tradition. The blog acted as a focal point and exchange of information – for example, Daniel Murray's piece about online interactive music scores from the Irish Traditional Music Archive is a resource that I was unaware of but will most certainly be using regularly from now on. I was also delighted to hear Daniel Earls express his new-found appreciation of Donegal fiddling, likening John Doherty's rambunctious, yawping style – with its horde of eldritch eighteenth-century Scottish crossovers – to the guitar-style of Jimi Hendrix. Although, I did think the comparison flattered Hendrix somewhat.

Overall, I believe the project ran smoothly in that everyone approached their work with great diligence and all the goals that we set ourselves were achieved.

Daniel Earls 's Group Reflection.

The project, from the outset involved constructing a reference collection for Traditional Irish Music. Our group formed after the first information and reference services class and consisted of 7 MLIS students.

We decided on the topic of Irish Traditional music after debating about a topic leaning towards history. A few of the group members had a musical background and the focus on traditional Irish music meant that information resources would be relatively close at hand. Personally I’m completely unfamiliar with the conventions of Irish traditional music, but I never thought this was going to be a limiting factor since the main impulse behind the collection was an adequate structure and form, as opposed to comprehension of content.

We settled on the topic by the end of the class and by week 3 we were meeting once a week to discuss the collection. The group meetings I felt were all quite efficient as we made a point of always leaving with everybody having at least one task to complete. This lead to us building up quite a bit of momentum in terms of material covered and we managed to get to the reference tool evaluation stage fairly early on. I felt that our work management was well managed, more so than in some other groups I was involved in, and the even work distribution lead to a feeling of mutual appreciation and respect among the group members. However the early momentum lead to a consensus that we could defer the group meetings for a while and this may have delayed the potential completion of the overall project somewhat. Although our strong dynamic did compensate for any possible delay by each group member agreeing to a specific portion of work by a specific deadline; this lead to people who wanted to proceed to go ahead at their own pace.

Although I didn’t have a prior familiarity with traditional Irish music, I do listen to music regularly, so even though the project was structure orientated I thought I would be ok when it came to evaluating the reference tool. I had to evaluate the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music by Michael Kennedy and I found it a formidable task. Many of the dictionaries definitions had to be cross referenced and explored with various other music encyclopaedia’s as I was not familiar with much of the content.

I personally think I was very lucky with the group dynamic, as everybody got on really well and there was never any detectable conflict or tension at all within the group. It also proved useful as a socialising point and getting to know some very nice people. Hopefully this aspect of group harmony will be reflected in our presentation of the wiki.

Lindsay's Group Reflection

Our reference project was to develop a reference collection for an Irish Traditional Music library. We had seven team members, all on the MLIS programme.


The project, from my point of view went smoothly overall. We selected our topic quite early on, and arranged meetings each week from week 3 of the course. I felt this worked well because it meant we were all consistently working on the project, and it enabled us to divide work out evenly and effectively. So, our time management and workload distribution was very strong.


However, as we had worked so well early on for this project and so felt we were ‘ahead of the curve’ we did slow down midway through, and our meetings and workflow became more sporadic. I believe this prolonged the project unnecessarily, and the fact that all team members were quite easy-going possibly hampered a speedy finish somewhat. Having said that, I nonetheless feel the project went well; there was a willingness from each team member to get work done and everyone put a good effort in. Everyone seemed interested in the topic and enjoyed working together – we had fun working on this and there were no ostensible clashes of personality.


From my point of view I really enjoyed this project, both due to my other team members, but also because it is a subject I have a background in. Initially I was concerned that having previous knowledge of the subject would inevitably mean I would need to take on more work but that was not the case at all. Each team member, I felt, put in equal work and bought in to the project, so my concerns were unfounded. Conversely it is possibly the case that because I have knowledge on the subject that the project was a little easier for me, so potentially an advantage. Additionally, while knowledge of the subject matter may have some advantage, the fact that we had members of our group with library experience and technical expertise definitely added a lot of value (I would say more value) to the project.


The end result reflects the time and effort that went into the project and I am very happy with the result.

Daniel Murray's Group Reflection

I had not been involved in a group project since secondary school, where such undertakings had commonly been marked by apathy and reluctance to participate. So I was somewhat apprehensive upon first being informed that a considerable part of the module would include group project, feeling that I would be out of my ‘comfort zone.’

I need not have worried. The advantage of an MLIS course is that everyone is there because they want to be. The high levels of motivation and a determination to do well are shared. So almost as soon as the group was formed we were quickly discussing the options of what to do.

The initial topic was history before we decided on music, specifically Irish music as it is a niche interest we could specialise in while at the same time being an extremely popular genre that would be much in demand.

The choice of music was another ‘comfort zone’ I was out of, as I can barely tell the difference between a music sheet and a spreadsheet. However, the project did not require actual understanding of musicology, just the same set of skills needed for any library project in the future. The choice of music in that regard was extremely useful, teaching me the importance of flexibility in a world where we do not always get things that interest us specifically.

There was some debate on issues such as to who our target group would be, which were resolved quickly and efficiently. We were all keen to engage with the project and wanted to keep a steady pace going while ensuring nothing was left behind or undone.

There have been several group projects in the course for different modules, and our one here had the advantage of being one of the first to be set up. This allowed us time to ensure we all knew what we were doing. We began a habit of meeting regularly. The meetings were short, constant and allowed us to divide the work load between the group and then rejoining quickly afterwards to survey the latest work done.

Our early start allowed us to take a pause in the project and be ‘released’ to work on other assignments. When we returned to the project for the last few weeks, much of the groundwork was already done and all that was left was the mopping-up.

The hard-working nature of everyone in the project made for an egalitarian group, where everyone contributed evenly and diligently to the sum of the team’s parts.

There may be a few ‘I’s in ‘History and Development of Irish Traditional Music’ but there are none is this ‘team’!

Peter's Group Reflection

From the beginning, I was confident the group would work out well. Our first conversation, to pick the subject around which we would base our reference collection, was good humoured and productive. Opinions were clearly expressed and alternative ideas were aired freely. We seemed to hit it off from the start and to this day I consider it my favourite project group.

Having churned around several options, we decided in the end to go with Lindsay’s suggestion to build a reference collection on Irish Traditional Music. It was a great idea, not least because it was a subject that a novice (like me) could find their way into without too much difficulty. The fact that Lindsay was well versed in the topic also provided a measure of reassurance. 

Another crucial factor in the emerging group dynamic was Fintan’s excellent project management skills. He always seemed to have the relevant background documents printed out and at the ready, and was comfortable suggesting tasks for different members. This helped to avoid indecision and allowed us to develop a coherent strategy in terms of research, interview work and writing tasks. Overall, I’d say we were a well organised group.

As the project progressed, we realised we had completed quite a lot of background research so decided to slow down and focus on other projects. I think we probably lost a little momentum as a result, but not so much that things got out of hand. We called a meeting to assign tasks and discuss how we wanted to draw the various threads of the project together. As ever, the energy levels were high and I was pretty confident we’d have everything done on time and to a high standard. 

We were all eager to contribute on an equal basis, or as close to it as was feasible, and I reckon we were successful in this regard. There was never a suggestion that any individual was failing to pull their weight, and people were willing to collaborate on tasks where cooperation seemed more likely to produce a better outcome.

Fintan's Group Reflection

This group project was the first group project I have ever been involved with in an academic course. It took a little getting used to the dynamics of a group project at the start as it was quite a large group with seven members and on one knew each other. I was used to working in teams in my previous job but there was always a boss to make decisions so that the projects moved swiftly along. In a group with seven equals no one could call the shots so at the start there were many long discussions about small things with everyone afraid to make a decision. However, as we progressed this sorted itself out as time pressure meant that procrastination was reduced and decisiveness won through.

In all we worked well as a team and we decided at the second meeting that we would base our reference collection on the History and Development of Irish Traditional Music. We set up a blog on Blogger.com and we all contributed to this by posting up reviews of parts of important books, interviews with librarians in targeted music libraries/archives and notes on other topics. We met weekly and made good progress. However, midway through the semester pressures from other modules reduced the amount of time that we spent on the project and it was neglected for a few weeks until a final spurt of action by everyone in the last two and a half weeks go us over the line.

Overall, I was very happy with the way we worked as a team and every member contributed equally to the project. Each member completed his or her allotted tasks diligently and I think the final Wiki exhibits the fruits of these efforts to full effect.

Justin's Group Reflection.

This particular group was formed quite early in the semester. Consequently, it was the first group I was a member of and the first group project I undertook. Having no previous experience of this kind of exercise, it took me a couple of weeks to adjust. Previously I would have preferred to work alone but my participation in this group changed my entire mentality and I am now extremely grateful for the emphasis placed on group work throughout the course.

Our topic was chosen during our first meeting. Initially our focus was "The History and Development Of Irish Traditional Music". However, after further discussion we decided to make our collection slightly more concise as we felt that "History and Development" was far too broad. Instead, we agreed to amend the title to "Irish Traditional Music Reference Collection". This allowed us to branch out into areas that were not restricted by historical or evolutionary factors.

The majority of work on the project was done early on. In hindsight this was a good tactic. As the semester progressed other group projects began to pile up and this directly affected our ability to continue at the same rate. I believe that only for this we could have completed the project early on.

I did have some concerns about my lack of musical knowledge. Fortunately this didn't turn out be a negative factor. Any questions or concerns I had were brought up and comfortably dealt with during our meetings. The workload throughout the project was decided upon and carried out democratically. No member was found wanting in terms of work input. This led to a comfortable group dynamic. Overall, I am extremely pleased about the my group experience and what I believe to be the high quality of our project.

From Library.ie

Interactive music scores from ITMA
by abevan on 15 November, 2010

A new feature is now available on the Irish Traditional Music Archive website – interactive music scores. These are music notations that you can not only view on screen but also play back in lots of user-friendly ways. You can start, pause and stop playback anywhere you want in a score, skip forwards or backwards quickly in it, change its playback tempo or change its key. An ideal learning environment!From now on, ITMA will be regularly adding more notations from historic music collections to this area for you to enjoy, using Sibelius’s Scorch software.The first set of scores is now available here. It consists of the first 100 tunes from Ryan’s Mammoth Collection, published in Boston in the 1880s. ITMA staff will be adding more tunes from this and other collections regularly – watch their website!

Na Píobairí Uilleann

Discussion with Terry Moylan, Librarian & Archivist at Na Píobairí Uilleann

Budget & Funding

The budget allocated to the library/archive last year was about €6,000 which went towards acquisitions, maintenance, binding, conservation, recordings, artefacts and pipes.

Funding for Na Píobairí Uilleann (NPU) derives mainly from the Arts Council, but also from membership subscriptions and mail order. They are currently building an online catalogue and it is hoped that the soon-to-be launched website will significantly increase book sales. This would be a timely boost given the expected budget cuts from the Arts Council. There is a steady demand for NPU-published material.

Low-cost means of acquiring reference material

In discussing the cost of reference material, Terry suggested that online sources can be readily utilised in an effort to keep costs down. Several books in NPU's reference library have been downloaded from the internet, printed and professionally bound. The books in question rarely come to market, and, in any case, would far exceed NPU's means. Such books are sometimes made available by the owners, to be scanned by collectors. The best and most substantial example that NPU have in their reference collection is John Rook's Multum in Parvo (or 'A Collection of Old English, Scotch, Irish & Welsh Tunes'). The Rook manuscript, which dates from about 1840, contains well over a thousand tunes collected for the Northumbrian pipes and other instruments. Links for the Rook Manuscript on the Ross Anderson page:

Cover: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/musicfiles/rook/

Index: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/musicfiles/rook/rook_pages/index.htm

Thanks to the tireless work of those who scanned this vast work, it can now be printed, bound and added to a reference collection at a comparatively small cost.

Acquisition Policy/Donations/Weeding

Generally, NPU try to acquire anything that comes to market concerning the pipes including photography, artefacts, books, magazines, journals, tapes, vinyl records, CD's and rare sets of pipes.

Donations are occasionally offered, and all formats are accepted – given that a large proportion of pipe music has never been converted to digital format. The question of material being out-of-date is irrelevant, and, as such, there is no weeding policy. Over the years, NPU have received some unusual sets of pipes from as far afield as France.

Means of finding and reviewing resources for the reference collection

The library is in regular communication with publishers, collectors, and musicians regarding new material, conferences and so forth. Terry referred to the following as regular sources of material:
abebooks.com
googlebooks – digitized pdfs
The National Library of Ireland

Essential Reference Material
Terry considers the following titles to be of central importance to a reference collection concerning traditional Irish music:

Breathnach, B., Folk Music & Dance in Ireland

Flood, G., History of Irish Music

Fleishman, A., Sources of Irish Traditional Music c.1600 – 1855

Shields, H., A Bibliography of Irish Music

Also, another excellent title available to download from the Library of Congress is James P. Cassidy's A Treatise on the Theory & Practise of Dancing (1810).

Further to the above, Terry suggested some recordings that he deems essential-listening for the would-be librarian of a traditional Irish music reference collection, e.g. a 1960's recording of Connemara singer Joe Heaney – available on Topic Records – of traditional songs in Irish and English. For a pipes-specific recording, Terry recommends 1950's archival recordings of Leo Rowsome.

Here is a tune performed by the famous piper Willie Clancy. Clancy took up the pipes after seeing them being played by the great Johnny Doran (a travelling piper from Wicklow) at the races in 1936. He went on to play in a quartet with Leo Rowsome:

Carolan

Turlough O'Carolan, or Toirdhealbhach Ó Cearbhalláin, (1670 – 25 March 1738) was the last in a long line of Irish harper-composers. He is generally considered to be the greatest of Irish composers. Since his revival in 1970's, his influence on traditional Irish music has been unparalleled, with innumerable interpretations of his work, from Seán Ó Riada to The Chieftains and Planxty.

Blinded by smallpox at the age of 18, Carolan received instruction in the harp, under the patronage of the MacDermott Roe family for three years. Having been provided with a harp, a horse and a guide, he then set out for a life as an itinerant harper. Some 220 compositions are attributed to Carolan – a significant haul given that only 30 or so tunes known to have been composed by Irish harpers before Carolan have survived, mainly due to the fact that bardic tradition was an oral one.

Carolan's compositions reflect an influence of Italian Baroque music, which was becoming increasingly popular among the Irish gentry at the time. His blindness, however, would have prevented him from studying musical form, and the old Irish harp, being diatonic, could not change key. The Italians were writing pieces of some length in which changes of key and contrapuntal devices could be used. If an Italian influence is discernible in Carolan's music, it has to do with the rhythm and shape of the melodies. We know very little about how Carolan played his own music on his simple diatonic harp, but we can easily realise that he had a vast knowledge of the seventeenth century Italian composers, his own traditional music and the old, now forgotten medieval harp music of an earlier age – as is evident in the rich blend of folk and classical styles. Like much of our folk music existing in collections, Carolan's tunes were printed as unaccompanied single lines of music. Bizarrely, some ultra-purists actually believe that that is the only way his music should ever be played. For these people, harmony is a vexed question, but it is clear to anyone who understands the nature of the harp that its very soul is harmony, the harmony of freely resonating strings.

In his day, Carolan's popularity as a bard was unprecedented, receiving patronage of both planter and papist as the titles of his many planxties (tributes) bear testament to, e.g. Planxty Irwin, Planxty George Brabazon, Hewlett, Lord Inchiquin, Fanny Power, and so forth.

His music survived in the folklore tradition by fiddlers and pipers, as the Irish harp had died out by the early ninteeth century. Neale's A Collection of the Most Celebrated Irish Tunes ... in Dublin, c.1726 was the first publication of Carolan material, but it was not until 1958 that his entire repertoire was collected in one edition by Donal O'Sullivan, and even then few lyrics were given and some of the tunes were edited to make them fit the treble register. His music remained virtually unknown until the late Derek Bell brought it to a wider audience with a radio performance in 1972. Bell initially recorded with the BBC Northern Ireland Orchestra and The Chieftains (who he was to later join as a full member), but his most notable interpretations were solo recordings.

In his lifetime, Carolan's popularity as a bard was unprecedented, receiving patronage of both planter and papist as the titles of his many planxties (tributes) bear testament to, e.g. Planxty Irwin, Planxty George Brabazon, Hewlett, Lord Inchiquin, Fanny Power etc. Considered by many to be Ireland's national composer, he even featured on the Irish £50 bank note from 1972 to 1993. Unfortunately, youtube does not reflect this popularity as I could not find any solo recordings of Derek Bell which I only own on L.P. One of the harps that Bell uses on his solo recordings is a old Irish harp (as oppose to the neo-Irish harp) – a wire-strung harp of thirty-six strings resembling the O'Ffogerty harp of 1650 . The sound of the old Irish harps differs strikingly with the neo-Irish harp; its tonal quality is perhaps very distantly related to that of the harpsichord, but with a haunting bell-like quality that is all its own.

Here is a performance of Planxty George Brabazon featuring Derek Bell with accompaniment by The Chieftains:

Recommended recordings available on the Claddagh Records label:

Carolan's Receipt - Derek Bell (harp)
Carolan's Favourite - Derek Bell (harp)
Ó Riada's Farewell - Seán Ó Riada (harpsichord)

Summary of Peggy Johnson Book - 2nd Installment

Chapter 3 – Policy, Planning, and Budgets

Collection development policy statements

·         Libraries without collection development policies (CDPs) are like businesses without business plans.

·         Even a library with a written policy statement suffers if the statement is not consulted, reviewed, revised, and updated.

(We should think about incorporating this suggestion into out statement - i.e. a built-in review process).

·         CDPs serve as the plan for building and maintaining a collection.

·         CDP is a bit like a contract between library users and library staff as to what will be acquired, for whom and at what level.

·         A CDP sets out a plan for how a collection will be developed while also defining the rules directing that development.

·         Policy statements strike a balance between being overly general and idealistic and being detailed and ponderous.

·         For characteristics of a good policy statement:

1                     Consistency

2                     Flexibility – allow for adaptation to change.

3                     They are guides rather than rules, so admit of discretion in their application.

4                     They are written

·         A policy statement defines a framework and provides parameters, but it never tells how to select or reject a specific title (personal judgment is always required).

·         There are two main purposes of CDPs:

a)      To inform

b)      To protect

Information

·         CDPs inform by presenting the libraries mission and then describing current collections in terms of strength and weaknesses and setting future goals.

·         A policy “provides a theoretical overview that explains the educational, social, and cultural rationale for the development of the collection” (p. 74).

·         CDPs help with budgeting by providing info for external and internal preparation and allocation.

·         CDPs should demonstrate accountability by presenting a plan for careful management of fiscal resources.

·         CDPs also serve as a vehicle to communicate with the library’s staff, administration and constituencies.

·         Because CDPs are used to educate and train librarians responsible for collections, they should not become outdated.

·         CDPs serve a particularly important function to the extent that they document and support cooperative collection development: the policy should explicitly identify all current cooperative programs in which the library participates – collection building, resource sharing, regional storage, shared contribution and access to all electronic resources.

·         This last point suggests that we should try to mention connections our collection will have with other organisations/libraries (e.g. sharing of bibliographies, joint purchase of databases etc.)

Protection

 ·         CDPs protect the library against external pressures.

·         They protect intellectual freedom and prevent censorship.

·         I reckon it could be a good idea to articulate a policy for these issues in our statement.

·         Many library statements repeat or reference the Library Bill of Rights and other such statements on intellectual freedom.

·         The policy may include the procedures for handling a complaint against material held by the library.

·         This is akin to rehearsing a response to any challenge launched against the library.

·         Policies can also protect by guiding the handling of gifts – the policy specifies the conditions under which the library accepts and rejects gifts.

·         Libraries are advised not to appraise gifts but to refer potential donors to one or more external appraisers (good idea).

·         In times of decreasing budgets and increased material costs, CDPs can help to protect the weeding, deselection and serials cancellation process. Making clear the operating principles under which these decisions are made protects the library from charges of bias and irresponsible behaviour.

·         CDPs should identify issues of confidentiality by specifying the types of information that are private (e.g. donors, budgets, costs and value of materials etc.). 

Audience

·         CDPs serve many audiences.

·         First and foremost, they serve the staff. Copies should be available for all personnel. Many libraries post their policies on the library’s website (or intranet), where they can be easily consulted.

·         CDPs serve a wider audience as well. For example, policy statements can be meaningful to users, teachers and parents of students, and external funding and governing bodies.

Writing the CDP Statement

The components necessary for a good CDP:

·         Purpose statement

·         Background statement

·         Responsibility for collection development

·         Mission, goals and objectives

·         Target audiences

·         Budgeting and funding

·         Evaluation criteria

·         Format

·         Governing implications

·         Resources sharing

·         Services

·         Selection aids

·         Copyright

·         Intellectual freedom

·         Acquisitions

·         Gifts and exchange

·         Collection maintenance

·         Weeding

·         Collection evaluation

·         Policy revision

·         Definition of terms and glossary

·         Bibliography

·         Appendixes