UCD Library Music Collection

Hi all,

Yesterday I spoke with Lorraine Foster who is the librarian in charge of the music collection in the James Joyce Library.

Annual Budget
There is no particular annual budget for the reference collection. Money is very tight at the moment and if they get some money, Lorraine consults with staff in the School of Music and they collaborate together to decide on what they buy. Currently, they would focus on large volumes or research monographs for additions to the music reference collection. She had no idea of the initial set-up budget as she is only in this position since July.

Definition of Reference Material
They would class things as reference if they were encyclopaedias, dictionaries, handbooks, biographies or large volumes. There is a lot of reference material available digitally now through findit. Sometimes School staff may suggest some books are more suitable for reference than general collection. UCD do not put any audio material (CDs etc) in the reference collection. This is mainly due to the fact that CDs can not be taken out of the library anyway due to their loan type. Lorraine said that CDs could be put into a reserve collection and particularly older material such as LPs may be suitable.

Government Publications
These would be put in the section of the library for official documents and would not be in the music reference collection.

Find/review Resources
The library and the School of Music work collaboratively when there is money available to buy new material. The School has a wish list if items and normally they just work off this list whenever money is available. There is no fixed policy by the library to get as much material it digital format and each item is assessed individually. There has been a big increase in digital material such as ebooks in the collection.

Donations
They do accept donations. Lorraine would assess the material and if there is space available and would also consult with School staff to see if it is material that is useful. If it is not suitable for the music collection, Lorraine would speak to the other librarians to see if it is useful for another section of the library.

Weeding Poicy
The main issue with weeding is space. Books with low usage statistics can be moved to the store downstairs or to the library's other store in Newstead (old Philips building near Richview). They try to keep 1 copy of Irish publications on the shelves. The collection is assessed to see if very old items are moved to the Special Collections section of the library.

Lorraine also said that she was told that University of Limerick have a very good music collection and they got a lot of money recently to develop it. It might be worth talking to them sometime.

Fintan