A Book Worth Reading

Many years ago a friend of the family gave me a book. This was a book she had read and didn't really care for but thought I might enjoy it. This title is Talks with Great Composers: Candid Conversations with Brahms, Puccini, Strauss, and Others by Arthur Abell.

Abell set out to put together a book that would explain the creative force behind music composition. Abell was a journalist who happened to know the violinist Joseph Joachim and Joachim (at that point) was a an intimate friend of Johannes Brahms. Through Joachim Abell was allowed to interview Brahms about the creative process.

The first third of the book is devoted to the interview. Brahms openly and candidly speaks about what he believes are the requirements of being a good composer and what he thinks of composers of the past and present. The rest of the book relates interviews with other "minor" composers such as Humperdink (Hansel and Gretel) and Grieg among others.

One wonderful thing about the work is that Abell interviewed Brahms first and when he told the other composers that he had spoken to Brahms they were very excited and wanted to know what he had said; there was one problem however. Brahms told Abell he could publish the interview on one condition; that it not be published until 50 years after Brahms' death. (note: I would lose my mind). Brahms was very much aware that few composers are appreciated in their own lifetime (he had a great deal to say about those who are). Brahms felt the world would not truly appreciate what he had to say in his own time and that his words must wait.

Fate stepped in again because 50 years later it was 1947 and the world (according to Abell, but you can see his point) was not ready for a work such as this. The Nuremberg trials were still going on, Europe was still in ruins, and it seemed, if nothing else, to be in poor taste to publish such a work. Abell knew it would be a select audience that would read the book and did not delude himself that this work would affect much change. The work was finally published in 1955.

This book opened my mind. It is a testament of belief in God and in the abilities of the people on earth. Few works like this exist, none with this much comparison of viewpoint and in such an authoritative translation. If you get the chance to read it, let me know what you think.

Making Ends Meet

Library budgets across the country are being cut back and so administrators are having to find creative solutions to provide access. The solutions generaly come in the form of whatever is free of charge. Google has maed it possible for institutions (like Univ of Mich) to digitize collections that can then be more easily integrated into the library's database since the metadata is already marked up, in some cases down to letter by letter.

This could mean a great deal to braille and talking book libraries since it could mean access to the materials from public and special library collections without having to record a narration of the work or transcribe the work into braille. Instead the digitized version is converted directly to braille code or run through a speech generator (if you don't like speech generators, shut the hell up, Patrick Stewart isn't waiting around to narrate your book).

This collaboration would be made possible by Title 17 of the U.S. code that means that copyrighted material may be reproduced in an accessible format provided that format is not easily duplicatable. UM has limited the availability of their digitized collection to UM students only, thus no BTBL has access to this collection. This is resonable since the students and the taxpayers are footing the bill in that case and little ol' me here in Mass. has no business asking to borrow something unique to that collection.

It will be interesting to see how this will all pan out; how many jobs might be lost, what about "library as place?"

Bad blogger, BAD!

I'm sorry everyone, like many who blog out there I had the best of intentions when I set out. Conor is growing so very fast, my wife and I are already starting to realize how right all those parents were who said time will go by so quickly. I have already completed my first TFC residency for the summer. The rain kept a lot of people away this time and I hope the second (and final residency of the summer) wil fair better.

Blogging is something that librarians count on. Why you ask? Blogging is the way we keep abreast of the most current data as well as trends. It is wonderful to be able to click on the feeds from blogs and read about what Sun Systems is doing or what was presented at a national conference. Bottom line librarianship is trying to keep ahead, never mind keep up with, the point and click world of today.

I follow several blogs about assistive technology and librarianship, some blogs are always current, some are not. This is also a way of networking and finding other sources of information. In this way I help keep up with the world outside of the BTBL (and my own) and also I run the chance of being able to help someone who might not connect with me.

Librarians are famous for our lists of lists. Bibliographies, directories, concordances, you name it; we want it somewhere on the shelf. Blogs are lists of lists; link lists. Blogging has been something that library schools (if they were smart) started telling students about a long time ago. While we think of them as something akin to the vanity press (some are just that) it is really another way to get people in touch with information.