A New National Branch Addition: Greece

The establishment of the Greek branch of IAML was formally introduced at the 65th IAML Conference that was held in Rome, during the General Assembly, on 5 July 2016. There, the President-Elect, Stanisław Hrabia officially introduced the new group to the General Assembly and welcomed it to the IAML family. This was just the end of the first phase for all of us in the Greek branch. A long effort that has successfully arrived at its first milestone, but we have more plans to fulfill in the near future.

It was at the beginning of this year that a group of music librarians took the initiative of summoning other colleagues in order to achieve the formation of a Greek IAML Branch, even though the intention was there for a long time. The music academic environment and research have changed for the better in recent years in Greece due to the establishment of the four university music departments, the development of musical academic libraries, the formation of music collections in general libraries, and the development of the special Music Library of Greece. Along with the above, a generation of music librarians, musicologists, and information specialists, interested in the special needs of music libraries and archives has cropped up. Through this network of people, the music libraries and local music collections have become better, more flexible, and offer new services to their users.

The obvious next step was the proper and formal collaboration of the professionals in the field, in order to get to know each other, as well as the specifics of the subject in Greece and finally to see things in a broader international context. For this to happen, it was necessary for us to come together. This happened in two phases. Firstly, the working group, comprised of people from the Ionian University in Corfu and the Music Library of Greece, but also from abroad that was established in the beginning of the year, worked as a temporary organising committee for the branch. Through continuous meetings and brainstorming, we managed to launch a mailing list that would include anyone who was interested in the establishment of the branch, to compile a Constitution that would be acceptable by IAML, and finally to organise a meeting in which all those who would like to help could come and express their ideas and willingness to participate in the launch of a Greek IAML branch. The meeting took place on 14 May 2016 at the Music Library of Greece and the temporary organising committee presented the scope of their efforts to the attendees. To our surprise, more than forty people attended the meeting and there were also a few who attended through the Web. During that meeting we decided to form a Board through elections, to apply for official recognition of the Branch by submitting our constitution to the IAML Board, and to try and initiate a campaign in order to have as many members as possible.

After the 14 May meeting, the temporary organising committee set a date for elections to take place, and at the same time formed a working group to add some final touches to the Constitution which was submitted in both English and Greek to the IAML Board by the newly-elected Greek Board that was to come out of the upcoming elections.

The election committee ran the elections through ZEUS Digital Voting system and twenty-three members, both institutional and individual, voted for the Board. Therefore, the newly founded Greek branch has eleven institutional members (Library of the School of Music Studies of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki; Music Library of Greece of the Friends of Music Society; Library of the Music Department of the Ionian University; Archives of Athens Conservatory; Institute for Research of Music and Acoustics; Library of the Technological Educational Institute of Epirus; Philharmonic Society of Corfu; the Manolis Kalomoiris Society; Greek Composer’s Union; Archive of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation-ERT; and the Friends of the Museum of Folk Instruments), as well as twelve individual members. The actual participation of twenty-three members was a pleasant...