Notes for Notes

The Music Library Association has announced its publications awards for 2003. The Vincent H. Duckles Award for the best book-length bibliography or other research tool in music published in 2003 was presented to the Dictionnaire de la musique en France au XIXe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 2003). The MLA Publications Awards Committee noted that "Prepared under the direction of editor Joël-Marie Fauquet, the Dictionnaire draws upon the expertise of nearly two hundred contributors, who together detail the rich and varied musical landscape in France during the nineteenth century. Deserving particular praise in the Dictionnaire are the coverage of lesser-known composers and performers, the attention given to musical activities in provincial centers, and the synthesis of disparate dates and facts into clearly presented tables and charts. The Dictionnaire de la musique en France au XIXe siècle forms a welcome companion volume to the earlier Dictionnaire de la musique en France au XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris: Fayard, 1992), and is of interest to all students of the nineteenth century, not only those involved with music." The Eva Judd O'Meara Award for the best review published in Notes in 2003 was awarded to Ann Morrison Spinney for her review of Writing American Indian Music: Historic Transcriptions, Notations, and Arrangements, edited by Victoria Lindsay Levine (Recent Researches in American Music, 44. Music of the United States of America, 11 [Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2002]). The review appeared in Notes 59, no. 3 (March 2003): 624–26. The committee stated "Spinney's informative contribution offers thoughtful, critical assessments of the strategies and achievements of the work under consideration with regard to its intended audience and beyond. In the process, the reviewer displays an impressive knowledge of the historical accounts of American Indian music that comprise the volume. Spinney touches not only on the strengths and weaknesses of contents within the anthology, but also upon the practical considerations associated with acquiring and preserving the book.The Committee believes that Spinney's review is particularly helpful in providing guidance to libraries of all types and readers of all levels of expertise." The Richard S. Hill Award for best article on music librarianship or article of a music-bibliographic nature was awarded to Leslie Troutman for her article "Comprehensiveness of Indexing in Three Music Periodical Index Databases,"published in Music Reference Services Quarterly 8, no. 1 (2001): 39–51. The committee comments "From the literature on music librarianship and music bibliography that appeared in 2003, Troutman's article stands out as an extraordinary example of comparative analysis of three core databases of music literature: RILM Abstracts, International Index to Music Periodicals, and Music Index. Troutman's investigation systematically and thoroughly explores materials that are basic to the work of music librarians, and at the same time her article touches on other aspects of our profession such as collection development, information literacy, and teaching."

Other MLA Awards. The recipient of the 2005 Dena Epstein Award for Library and Archival Research in American Music has been given to Melissa J. de Graaf, a Ph.D. candidate at Brandeis University. Ms. de Graaf's dissertation, for which archival research is necessary, is entitled "The New York City Composers' Forum, 1935–1940: A Missing Link in American Music." She is examining Forum documents and all related archival material, focusing her critique on issues of modernism, gender, ethnicity, race, and politics as represented in Forum discourse and performance.

The Carol June Bradley Award was given to Anita Breckbill and Carole Goebes for a project entitled "Music Circulating Libraries in France." Breckbill and Goebes's proposal arises from their work in curating the Rokahr Family Archive, a music special collection at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, that contains nineteenth-century French operetta scores previously owned by various music circulating libraries in France through the mid-twentieth century. Initial research for this project with businesses and libraries in France was undertaken through e-mail and fax inquiries. This award will support travel to libraries and businesses in and around Paris to elicit answers to...