The First Estonian-Finnish Music Library Seminar, Helsinki, 26th–27th May 2016

The Estonian IAML Branch organised the first Baltic-Nordic Music Library Meeting in Tallinn in 1999. The second meeting, ambitiously titled "Music – Politics – Libraries", had its turn in Helsinki in 2007, while the third one in Stockholm in 2013 was part of the Swedish Branch's sixtieth birthday. The fourth meeting was supposed to be organised in 2015, yet again in another city, but was, unfortunately, cancelled. This led to the idea of trying to create a smaller-scale meeting, though still keeping it international. The easiest solution was to limit countries to cover only Estonia and Finland, these two being partners in a strong music library cooperation in the 1990s and early 2000s. The focus of the meeting was also reconsidered, in other words to include libraries primarily in universities and vocational universities, as well as archives and museums. As such, this was the major point of interest of the Seminar, as it offered for the first time—at least in Finland—a truly holistic view to the varied presence of music in different kinds of institutions.

The Seminar was hosted by the Helsinki University Library in its main building, the Kaisa House. There were fifty-one participants in the Seminar (not everyone present all the time), and the number of papers given was twenty-two. Besides the ordinary sessions, we had an evening excursion to the Helsinki City Museum's large music-related exhibition. The final program, as well as most of the presentations, was published as PDFs on the Web page of the Finnish IAML Branch (http://www.musiikkikirjastot.fi/the-first-estonian-finnish-music-library-seminar-26th-and-27th-may-2016/#.V9ksEnrl9nA [accessed 24 March 2017]).

As the chair of the organising committee, I here take the liberty to thank everyone who was present and especially those who gave a paper or speech for their great effort for our common good.