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!