By Leslie McCall

Inside ZSR

Leslie at MLA 2024

This year’s meeting of the Music Library Association was held in Cincinnati, with a hybrid format. I attended virtually. IL A panel unveiled the Music Companion to the Framework for Information Literacy, the culmination of several years’ work developing music applications for the ACRL standard. Some points distinctive to music and other performing arts: Embodied... more

Leslie at MLA 2023

Another joint meeting of the Music Library Association and the Theatre Library Association this year, with a program rich in interdisciplinary and DEI topics. In a session titled “Beyond the Land Acknowledgement,” we learned about the contributions Native Americans have made to the literatures libraries collect. Graduates of the notorious boarding schools pursued professional careers... more

Leslie at SEMLA 2022

As usual, some fine presentations at the Southeast Music Library Association’s annual meeting, which I attended virtually this year: EDI Colleagues at Vanderbilt described a collaborative venture with the National Museum of African American Music (also in Nashville TN). Vanderbilt’s Special Collections created a new fund for the purchase of African-American musicians’ papers and related... more

Leslie at MLA 2022

An eleventh-hour appearance by the Omicron variant scotched plans for a hybrid conference of the Music Library Association this year, and obliged us to revert to all-virtual mode. No shortage of informative sessions, though. In a panel session, we learned of various initiatives to diversify music collections. Some libraries have relied on lists that many... more

Leslie at MLA 2021

An exceptionally rich program at this year’s (online) conference of the Music Library Association  – we met  jointly with the Theatre Library Association (some very good sessions co-presented by members of both organizations), and we had an EDI conference theme. EDI The opening plenary addressed anti-racist performing arts librarianship. While the performing arts have historically... more

Leslie at SEMLA, OLAC, NASIG (virtually)

I think a number of us have discovered one silver lining to a pandemic: the opportunity to take in additional professional-development events as they converted to a virtual format this year. For my part, I virtually attended conferences of my regional music library association, SEMLA, and a couple of other organizations that I’ve indirectly benefited... more

Leslie at MLA 2019

This year’s meeting of the Music Library Association was held in St. Louis (where in mid-February the wind never stopped blowing!) DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION D & I was this year’s conference theme. While much of the programming replicated the work we’ve done here at Wake, two sessions yielded some fresh insights for me: In one,... more

Leslie at MLA 2018

This year’s meeting of  the Music Library Association was held in Portland, Oregon. A very busy conference for me, between session attendance and committee duties. Cataloging The Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG), which holds its annual meeting as a pre-conference to MLA, celebrated its 40th anniversary this year. We received updates on cataloging standards and... more

Leslie at MLA 2017

It’s been clear for some time now that the Music Library Association has outgrown the traditional members-take-turns-hosting-the-annual-meeting system; so this year, for the first time, we engaged an event-planning firm, who seems to have taken their cue from ALA, because we fetched up in Orlando. Besides the balmy temps, there was a second good reason... more

Leslie at SEMLA 2016

This year’s meeting of the Southeast Music Library Association was hosted by our neighbors at Duke University. Lots of thought-provoking presentations! DIGITAL HUMANITIES A colleague at Duke who teaches both English literature and music appreciation noticed that her students often misidentify sounds — but that there was no dictionary to refer them to, as she... more