The Swedish Music Library Association celebrates 70 years

Then finally we met again after four years! Stockholm gave us sun and spring warmth in April 2023 and the Royal Swedish Musical Academy (KMA) offered us its beautiful meeting room. KMA's permanent secretary, Fredrik Wetterqvist, stopped by on his way to other meetings and talked about the house.

Our Norwegian sister association sent a video greeting from Oslo. A birthday song was mixed with the car noise from the street outside Deichmanske library. You can still see it on our Facebook page.

Getting to introduce our honorary member and longtime colleague Veslemøy Heintz as our first speaker was a great pleasure for me. The title she had chosen was "SMBF 70 years - the story begins in 1951" - a clear signal that everything has a prehistory.

Pia Shekhter talked about how IAML works nowadays and gave insights into the work of the board and how the 24 national branches have developed.

Katarina Aronsson, dramaturge at the Royal Opera House, gave a presentation called "Future, present and past in a 250-year-old institution. What does the work as an opera dramaturg entail?” which is now on our website.

After lunch we gathered to listen to Henrik Summanen's presentation "Copyright in a digital society. How can the EU directive for a 'digital single market' be adapted in Sweden?"

Henrik Summanen, who is coordinator for digitization at the National Antiquities Office, gave his view on this. He is also working on writing a digitization strategy.

Then we had a Nordic outlook. First, Jaska Järvilehto, president of the Finnish Music Library Association/Suomen Musiikkikirjastoyhdistys ry, presented their activities and then I gave a brief presentation about the associations of Norway and Denmark.

Time just flew quickly so after a short break Lena Nettelbladt told her own story within SMBF through Musikbiblioteksnytt. Lena was the editor for more than ten years.

The closing presentation was given by Tobias Ringborg, violinist, conductor, etc., who has edited a new volume of Johan Helmich Roman's works for violin solo, and he told us how he carried out the work by looking for all available editions. He played a couple examples.

The edition is available for download on Levande Musikarv.

The day then ended with bubbles and canapés and lots of talking and laughing! A heartfelt thank you all 45 participants: members, presenters, and organizers for making the day a brilliant adventure!