United Kingdom and Ireland

Handwritten copies of scores by composers of English lute music have been digitised in a programme to make a precious legacy available to professional and amateur musicians around the world.

Cambridge Digital Library is launching a new Music Collection with the online release of the 'crown jewels' of English lute music. Dating from the late 16th and early 17th century, the manuscripts contain handwritten copies of scores by John Dowland, Francis Cutting and dozens of other early modern composers.

Last week, the British Library announced a startling fact that probably rings true for many people who work with sound recordings:

“Professional consensus is that we have approximately 15 years in which to save the UK’s sound collections before they become unplayable and are effectively lost. The solution is to digitally preserve them, but the scale of the task required is considerable and time is running out.”

You may have seen the recent announcements in the Press concerning severe cuts at the new Library of Birmingham (link is external). (See list of links below)

About 100 of the Library’s 188 staff will go as opening hours are cut from 73 to 40 hours per week and other services for the public are stopped.

The Director of the Library has resigned, and if these proposed changes go ahead, business, learning, music and archive services will cease - there will no longer be a Music Library in Birmingham, run by specialist staff with relevant subject knowledge...

The following was published as part of 23 Librarians, a project run by Anabel Marsh that provides an overview of library and information work in Scotland. This entry is by James Beaton and is reprinted with kind permission.

James Beaton is Librarian at the National Piping Centre in Glasgow.

The following originally appeared on the IAML (UK & Irl) blog and is reposted with kind permission here:

We’re delighted to say that we can now offer a handlist of materials held in the IAML Library. You can find it on our website here.