Notes for Notes

The Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut Libraries has recently made the finding aid for the Samuel and Ann Charters Archives of Blues and Vernacular African American Musical Culture available online. Samuel Charters began field recording for Folkways Records in 1954. A prolific writer and poet, Charters has, over the years, published many books about blues and jazz and accounts of the lives of musicians. In the field, he often collaborated with his wife Ann, who is a writer, literary scholar, photographer and pianist in her own right. Their quest to document African American music has taken them to St. Louis, Memphis, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana, the Caribbean, and as far as Africa. In these places, the Charters have tried to record music that they believed was going to be lost. Their efforts to preserve and share the songs that they heard on their travels have culminated in a working archive that provides researchers with a complete experience of African American vernacular music. The archive was donated to the University of Connecticut by Samuel and Ann Charters in 2000 and has been added to significantly each year since then. The finding aid was prepared and fully annotated by Samuel Charters and reflects fifty years of discovering and documenting African American music. The finding aid is fully word searchable and is available at http://www.lib.uconn.edu/online/research/speclib/ ASC/findaids/charters/MSS20000105.html (accessed 19 November 2008).

For more information about the Samuel and Ann Charters Archives of Blues and Vernacular African American Musical Culture please visit: http://www.lib.uconn.edu/online/research/speclib/ASC/collections/ChartersArchives_brochure.pdf (accessed 19 November 2008), or contact Kristin Eshelman, curator of multimedia collections, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Libraries, 405 Babbidge Rd. U-1205, Storrs, CT 06269-1205; e-mail: kristin.eshelman@uconn.edu.

The Center for American Music of the University Library System (ULS) at the University of Pittsburgh has been awarded a grant in the amount of $39,826 for a 2008 National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The grant will fund a planning conference scheduled for May 2009 at the university to develop strategies for creating an electronic directory for Resources of American Music History. The project is a partnership between the Center for American Music and the Society for American Music, a constituent member of the American Council of Learned Societies (http://www.american-music.org/ [accessed 19 November 2008]).

One of only nine planning grants made nationally by the IMLS, Pitt's project was identified by the granters as "one that will have an impact on library and information services and serve as models to libraries across the nation."

Experts in information technology, and in American-music archival and library resources will participate in planning a new comprehensive reference tool for American music history. Reviewers for the IMLS were impressed that the two-day conference will bring together specialists in metadata, information technology, and union cataloging, with preliminary work being done by experts through solicited papers.

Deane Root, director of the Center for American Music and professor of music, will serve as project director. Mr. Root notes

It is gratifying that the leading professional and scholarly associations in music research and librarianship, along with the federal agency for museums and libraries, have recognized the leadership of the University Library System's Center for American Music by supporting and funding our project to create a central electronic reference tool for American music studies. We look forward to bringing together the top specialists in information technologies and music to plan this unprecedented digital resource.

For more information, please contact Deane Root, at 412-624-7775 or dlr@pitt.edu.