Introduction

I am not musical in any way, shape, or form. I can’t read music and I can’t carry a tune. In fact when I sing, my children ask me to stop. So choosing the Marvin Duchow Music Library as the subject of my Special/Archive Library research probably seems like an odd choice. I discovered the library quite by accident while researching articles for another assignment. The article I found led me to an exhibit about how women were represented in 19th-Century French sheet music at the library (Cawelti, 2019). I couldn’t help but be amazed by such a specific topic and wonder what kind of people curate that type of collection. This assignment gave me an opportunity to research the library and find out a little more about it.

Digital Access

The Marvin Duchow Music Library is located on the third, fourth, and fifth floors of the Elizabeth Wirth Music Building. It is part of if McGill University in Montreal, Canada. For the purposes of this assignment I was only able to visit virtually. Happily, the website offered detailed, full-color maps of each floor (McGill, 2022) as well as a virtual tour using Google Earth (2015).

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The website for the library is very easy to navigate. You do tend to move in and out of the McGill University website from time to time but it is seamless and you can hop back over to the library without issue. According to their introduction the Marvin Duchow Music Library “provides resources and services to support the performance, composition, research, and teaching programs of the Schulich School of Music. It also serves the McGill University community at large. Members of the general public are welcome to consult the Library” (McGill, 2022). While clearly part of McGill University the Marvin Duchow Music Library is also separate from the University. It has, as Rubin and Rubin stated its own head librarian and it is “activity-oriented, focused on meeting users needs” (2020, pp 198-199).

Staff members are listed on the website. Emails and phone numbers are listed for each of them. There are also chat and text options for questions and assistance. At the very bottom of the page there is a button for Accessibility. When you click it you see the commitment McGill and the library have made to accommodating all members of their community. There are many special collections listed on the website, including the one that drew me to the library in the first place “Women, Work, and Song, in Nineteenth-Century France” (Hulley and White, 2018). There you can research the historical context of the pieces, read essays on the work, and explore the actual sheet music. Some of the catalog is open to the public but much of it requires a McGill account and password. Other than the virtual tour of the floors I did not see any other virtual services or programming.

Space and Physical Access

From this Google Earth image (2015) you can see that the library is a large, modern structure on a busy city street. There are signs pointing the way to parking lots, a bus stop, and bike racks. The map also shows that the building is situated between two metro stations. There are different kinds of indoor spaces including large study areas, smaller study rooms, and soundproof seminar rooms. There are listening and viewing stations and the 5th floor is a designated quiet study area with assigned places that are dedicated to graduate students. There are computer stations throughout that have headphones for listening to music and lectures.

The website takes care to point out that all the floors of the library are available via elevator. It mentions that there are handicap accessible restrooms on each floor. It goes on to explain that not all the doors are easily opened with a press of the button and invites users to ask for assistance should they not be able to open it themselves. Library users are also asked to share there accessibility issues and concerns with the staff so that they might continue to make improvements.

Services and Intellectual Access

There were no obvious special services or programs online. From the pictures there are signs clearly printed in both English and French. I could not discern how the collections were categorized. The academic search engines are similar to the ones we have at Old Dominion University. Without an email and password I couldn’t get too far into the databases but I could see they JSTOR and Google Scholar. There are also several databases dedicated to music and a Canadian specific encyclopedia. Throughout the library website you find mentions of accessibility and inclusivity. It is clear that their doors are open to individuals of all kinds.

People (Patrons and Staff)

In perusing the library website it is clear that the focus is on assisting the students and faculty at McGill University. Unfortunately, I was not able to witness any interactions between staff and patrons as I was limited to a virtual visit. There are nine staff members on the website listed but no photos. I cannot speculate on the diversity of the staff. Positions included Documentation Technician, Reference Assistant & Cataloguing Editor, and Coordinator of Music Library Access Services & Music Liaison Librarian.

Collections

“The Marvin Duchow Music Library’s mandate is to collect and provide access to the wide variety of materials needed to study musical works. As a result, the collection consists of printed scores, sound and video recordings, books and journals, as well as musical, textual, graphics-based, and multimedia data in a variety of formats” (McGill, 2022). The library has laptops and recording equipment to loan out. It also has many types of specialized musical equipment and software. Everything is focused on music: making it, recording it, analyzing it, and curating it.

Other/Conclusion

I was pleased to find professional development resources for finding employment, gigs, and healthcare. I also found curated resources to explore music created by people of color and members of the Indigenous community. There was other curated resource for work created by members of the LGBTQ+ community and for women composers.

I have absolutely no reason to visit the Marvin Duchow Music Library other than I really want to. I am not the patron they serve as I have no musical knowledge but I am fascinated by the work they are doing. I am also profoundly happy to know that institutions, professional librarians, and historians are curating and preserving historical pieces like the 19th-Century French sheet music that first snagged my attention.

References

Cawelti, A. (2019). Digital resource review. Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 1(1), 129-144. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479409819000600

Google. (2015, July). Outside music library [Image]. https://www.google.com/maps/@45.506136,-73.572822,3a,75y,350h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sQAigbIRm82sAAAQq1qJVew!2e0!3e11!7i7168!8i3584

Hulley, K. & White, K. (2018). Women, work, and song, in nineteenth-century France [Exhibition]. Marvin Duchow Music Library, Montreal, Canada. https://digital.library.mcgill.ca/fsm/index.php?lang=en-CA

McGill University (2022). About the Marvin Duchow Music Library. https://www.mcgill.ca/library/branches/music/about

Rubin, R. E., & Rubin, R. G. (2020). Foundations of library and information science (5th ed.). ALA Neal-Schuman.