The Barbican Music Library

The following post is by Pia Shekhter, IAML Secretary General:

Before the mid-year Board meeting in London (13-14 February) I took the opportunity to visit the Barbican Music Library. It is part of the City of London’s Libraries and houses one of the most significant public music collections in the UK. The Music Librarian (and IAML UK & Ireland member), Richard Jones (photo, left), kindly showed me around.

The library stocks over 16,000 CDs (one of the largest collections in any UK public library), DVDs, 16,000 music scores, over 70 periodicals and an extensive collection of books about music and musicians. It also hosts the library of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society. The users are offered listening booths, a dedicated study area and free internet access and WIFI plus two digital pianos for practice purposes (booking required). There are also online resources that can be remotely accessed free of charge by library members (membership is also free): Oxford Music Online, International Index to Music Periodicals and Naxos Music and Video Library. A listening post is used to feature recordings that either complement ongoing exhibitions or promote unsigned artists in the city. Another service well worth mentioning is the Barbican Song Index (online), which is very useful for finding songs in anthologies.

The Barbican is Europe's largest multi-arts and conference venue. It is also home to the London Symphony Orchestra. I happened to run into Sir Simon Rattle at the entrance! The Berliner Philharmoniker was giving a concert in the evening. The following day he was going to conduct the Young Orchestra for London, which is a joint education project between Southbank Centre and Barbican Guildhall in collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra. It forms part of the Berliner Philharmoniker’s 2015 London Residency this February. The Young Orchestra of London consists of 100 musicians aged from 11 to 21.

The Barbican Music Library is collaborating with Guildhall School of Music & Drama (GSMD) - one of the world's leading conservatoires and drama schools which is attached to the Barbican Centre – in running the People’s Pianos Project, a scheme that delivers free piano lessons to retired City residents, with students providing the tuition. The Guildhall School has its own library, but the students naturally also take advantage of the Barbican Music Library and occasionally they perform there.

During the Annual Study Weekend with the IAML UK & Ireland Branch in Cambridge last year the Barbican Music Library received an Excellence Award for Music Libraries 2014. “The Excellence Awards are presented every two years and acknowledge activity in music libraries which demonstrates sustained good work and good practice with the potential to be adopted and adapted by others.” The citation for the Barbican Music Library reads as follows: “The service was particularly commended for the strong partnership with the GSMD resulting in the People’s Piano Project, the excellent exhibitions programme and the partnerships developed there as well as the continued strong collection and expert staffing levels.”

As can be seen in the citation, the Barbican Music Library has an ambitious programme of exhibitions – see Richard Jones’s article “All that jazz: exhibitions, partnerships and promotion”, published in CILIP Update, February 2015: http://www.iaml.info/iaml-uk-irl/resources/Barbican_exhibitions.pdf

Photos courtesy of Michael Southwell.