Some of the greatest music resources at the Brandeis University Libraries cannot be found in its collections. This is because these resources are members of our own library staff. In addition to the many Brandeis University librarians who regularly attend concerts and other musical events in the Boston area, six of our professional librarians are actively involved in music performance, research, and librarianship.

Music Catalog Librarian Vera Lampert Deák wears many musical hats outside her position in the Creative Arts Section of the Library. An internationally recognized scholar on the music of composer and ethnomusicologist Béla Bartók, Vera has published extensively, writing numerous books, articles, and reviews. Some of Vera’s latest work includes the essays "Bartók at the Piano: Lessons from the Composer’s Sound Recordings," in The Cambridge Companion to Bartók, (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and "The Miraculous Mandarin: Melchior Lengyel, His Pantomime, and His Connections to Béla Bartók," in Bartók and His World (Princeton University Press, 1995). Vera has two chapters about Bartók the ethnomusicologist upcoming in the projected 20th-century volume of the series Magyarország zenetörténete, and she will be a co-reader of a projected English-Hungarian and Hungarian-English music dictionary. Vera is also an active member of the Music Library Association and the New England Music Library Association. Vera holds a degree from the prestigious Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest and is a pianist.

Ann Frenkel, Manager of the Goldfarb Reference Department, has had a diverse musical life. Her accomplishments run the gamut, from a Young Composer's of Oregon Award at age 9, a BA in Music from the University of Oregon, freelance harpsichordist/recorder player, professional choral musician, an MA in musicology from Boston University (thesis on French music criticism of the 1830s), and pianist for duo Black-Tie Banjo (2 CDs: At Home, 1996; and Centennial Souvenir--1998). She currently is writing and performing music to poetic texts (Rafael Wojaczek, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes and Alexander) for use in the performances of Theatre Vigoda. She gave two solo performances at Mobius in March 2001. Ann began her fruitful connection to libraries working as evening/weekend supervisor of the BU music library while completing her master's degree.

For the past three years, Bessie K. Hahn, Brandeis University National Women's Committee Librarian and Assistant Provost, has been a member of Chorus pro Musica (conducted by Jeffrey Rink), a Boston chorus known for its innovative programming of international repertory that spans all periods and styles. Recently performed works include a concert performance of Verdi’s Otello, Uruguayan composer Leon Biriotti’s Sinfonia da Requiem (a new work commissioned by the Chorus pro Musica and dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust) and this year, The Yellow River Cantata (1939) by Chinese composer Xian Xinhai (sung in Mandarin). Bessie will sing in the upcoming performance of this cantata at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. The chorus also performs with the Boston Philharmonic, and Bessie sang in the recent performances of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony (Symphony Hall and Carnegie Hall) and most recently, Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius in Symphony Hall. On June 3, Bessie will be a member of the chorus for a concert performance of Verdi's Macbeth in Jordan Hall. Bessie notes that "because of the pressure of work, I did not have time (or I thought I would not have the time) to do any choral singing for decades. Several years ago, I decided that it was ‘now or never.’ Am I glad that I took the plunge! Sometimes it is hard to find the time to learn the music and go to rehearsals, but whatever the effort, it is more than compensated by the opportunities to perform - to contribute to the making of glorious music."

Canchuan Li, Senior Cataloging Librarian, is a violinist and until recently was a member of the Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra’s first violin section. He has also played occasionally in the Nashua Symphony Orchestra.

Since February 1998, Judith S. Pinnolis, Reference Librarian for Publications and Training, has maintained the Jewish Music WebCenter, a Web site that she created and designed - and for which she has received international praise. The Argus Clearinghouse presented Judy with the Digital Librarian's Award in June 2000, noting: "Here's a site that not only brings together a huge mass of links and turns them into a well-organized, easy-to-use, fast-loading, and comprehensive resource directory, but also helps you learn how to use all this information to do formal research. Whether you have a casual interest in this topic, or wish to plunge deep into scholarly waters, the Jewish Music WebCenter is all you'll need." Judy is a very active member of the Music Library Association, serving as national chair of the Jewish Music Roundtable and recently honored with the appointment as Web Editor for the MLA. Last summer, Judy was invited to read a paper at the Third International Conference on Jewish Music, SOAS, at the University of London. Judy is a violist, playing in the Jewish Chamber Orchestra of Boston, and previously in the Concord Chamber Orchestra and the New Hampshire Philharmonic. Judy also has had a career in broadcasting, winning the Golden Reel Award, National Federation of Community Broadcasters, as producer and writer of Days of Awe: Music of the Jewish High Holy (on NPR and APR, 1991-92). Judy holds an MM degree from the University of Cincinnati with a thesis on the American composer Miriam Gideon.

Darwin F. Scott, Creative Arts Librarian, holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a dissertation on the early motets of the Notre Dame Era (France, early 13th century). He also continues to work extensively with 16th- and early-17th music printing and publishing and oversees The Walter F. and Alice Gorham Collection of Early Music Imprints, 1501-1650, held in the Special Collections Department of the library. Darwin has published numerous reviews, and as editor is presently completing the proofs for the book For the Love of Music: Festschrift in Honor of Theodore Front on His 90th Birthday, to be published later this year. Darwin is the music review editor for Notes (the journal of the Music Library Association), the designer and compiler of the online Notes Style Sheet, and serves on two committees of the MLA. Darwin is also an active member of the American Musicological Society, serving as a member of the Committee for Career-Related Issues. He has led several panel discussions for this committee at national meetings, the most recent on the music librarian as teacher at the 2000 Toronto meeting. Locally, Darwin is a member of the Boston Area Music Librarians, the Boston Library Consortium Music Group (chair), and the New England Music Library Association Darwin has taught graduate music courses at Brandeis and California State University, Northridge, where he also directed the collegium musicum for three years. Back in the days when he had time to practice, Darwin played the oboe and Renaissance wind instruments.

Not all of these librarians are specifically engaged in music librarianship at Brandeis, but their combined talents and activities create a library staff that has a particularly strong knowledge of music and music scholarship. So while the Brandeis University Libraries hums with the scholarly activities of researchers, many of its staff members might be quietly humming their own tunes to themselves.  

Even though medieval scholars and students studying Books of Hours are the intended audience for the CHD: Center for Håndskriftstudier i Danmark (The Institute for the Study of Illuminated Manuscripts in Denmark) website, members of the Brandeis community should take an especially close look at this site.

For scholars of Books of Hours, or students just starting out in learning about them, the CHD website is an excellent resource and learning tool. It was founded in 1991 by Erik Drigsdahl. The original purpose of the website was to introduce the latest results of modern codicological research to Danish art historians and to make accessible illuminated manuscripts in Danish collections. The website also aimed to make Danish manuscripts available for study to scholars outside the Danish community. While the website continues to perform these functions, it has also broadened its mission to include Books of Hours from outside of Denmark for study and research.

What makes the CHD website a place the Brandeis community should visit? First of all, it brings together in one place the major cultural institutions around the world that offer fully-digitized facsimiles of the Books of Hours on their websites. Another reason is its collection of incipits from the Hours of the Virgin, which is a wonderful resource for scholars doing in-depth research. And finally, the website offers an Online Tutorial to Books of Hours. The tutorial is the perfect starting point for students beginning to study the structure and content of medieval Books of Hours. In particular, it can be a great help for a student wresting with the intricacies of the Calendar variations found in Books of Hours.

But there is a bigger reason for why the Brandeis community should visit the CHD website. Erik Drigsdahl has not only provided a link from his site to our digitized copy of the Brandeis Book of Hours, but he has added scholarly value to it. Drigsdahl has provided a detailed description of the Brandeis Book of Hours (http://www.chd.dk/gui/index.html#BrH), which enriches our own digitized facsimile immensely. Remarkably, Drigsdahl was able to provide this scholarly description based solely on the digitized version of the Brandeis Book of Hours that is on our website. He has never seen our Book of Hours in person.

That a scholar can produce scholarly material from a digital copy of a work illustrates the importance of digitizing unique and fragile resources and making them accessible to a wide audience. Otherwise, these resources sit neglected, unknown and unused. Thanks to the collaboration between the Brandeis University Libraries and the CHD, we have made accessible to everyone a unique book that was previous unknown and have provided scholarly material that enhances its value.  

The Robert D. Farber University Archives has received two grants to preserve materials in the Sound and Moving Image Collection. The Archives received a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF) to analyze and reformat a film of Golda Meir's Special Convocation Speech. Meir's speech, given in the Slosberg Theater on March 6, 1973, was in honor of the 25th Anniversaries of both Brandeis University and Israel. The Archives also received a grant from the National Academy of Recording Artists, which hands out Grammy Awards, to clean and reformat 70 recordings of electronic music from the Music Department Collection. These materials will be available for research purposes within the next year.

The film of Golda Meir is significant because it provides a window into the mind of Golda Meir during a time of great stress between Israel and the surrounding Arab countries. The week prior to her visit to Brandeis, the Prime Minister met with President Nixon and his cabinet to secure continuing support for Israel. By contrast, she had been invited to Brandeis for a celebration and was given an opportunity to speak from the heart and to express her unique sense of hope.

Coming from a different spectrum, the electronic music tapes will provide researchers rare recordings of music created or collected by Brandeis' own electronic music lab in the 1960s and 1970s. This type of music, unlike traditional music, is unique because it is not notated and thus the recordings become the historical document. These tapes represent the work of important composers such as Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, and John Cage.

The Sound and Moving Image Collection is one of the largest collections in the University Archives. This collection includes film, video, and audio recordings documenting activities at Brandeis University from 1952 to the present. Many of the films were produced by the Public Relations office in the 1950s and 1960s in order to showcase Brandeis University. The audio tape recordings include lectures and musical performances by faculty and guests. There are many important individuals represented in this collection including composers Aaron Copland and Gustav Ciamaga; poets W.H. Auden and Marianne Moore; and world figures such as Indira Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the future these collections will be a valuable resource for research. However, because of the fragile condition of these materials they cannot be played until they have been reformatted from the original copy to a new medium such as Compact Disc. This type of preservation is extremely expensive and therefore outside support is a necessity. The Archives continues to seek support for the preservation of other groups of audio and film recordings. The next grant project will focus on preserving audio recordings of important lecturers such as Herbert Marcuse, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Abraham Maslow.

For more Information please contact Lisa Long, University Archivist, 781-736-4701  

You may have noticed that the Brandeis University Libraries are no longer providing online access to Nature or the Nature Monthlies. Brandeis has joined a long list of academic institutions that are refusing to sign on to Nature's license agreement - an agreement that withholds a substantial portion of the journal for three months after publication and requires a 17% surcharge for electronic access to this reduced publication.

The Nature Publishing Group has received an enormous negative response to its online subscription model, from libraries and from scholars. As a result, this model is under review by the publisher, so significant changes are likely to be on their way. This is an example of how academic libraries, with support and participation from the people they serve, can positively affect the economics and structure of scholarly publishing and ensure full and equal access to research literature.

We at the Brandeis Libraries would like to thank those who have written letters supporting our position, and especially to those who have taken the extra step of writing to the publisher. Writing letters of protest is one avenue, among many, that faculty members can take to join growing efforts at bringing fiscal responsibility and reason to the world of scholarly publishing. We hope that you will support us as we explore other opportunities in this area in the near future.  

Charles Cutter came to Brandeis in 1976 as the Library’s Head of the Judaica Dept. He had previously worked in the libraries of the Jewish Theological Seminary and Ohio State University.

In 1979 Charles completed his OSU doctoral thesis, entitled The American Yiddish Daily Press Reaction to the Rise of Nazism, 1930-1933. Ongoing research led to the publication of Jewish Reference Sources: A Select, Annotated Bibliographic Guide (1982, 2nd ed. 1993). He wrote articles on Judaica bibliography for Judaica Librarianship, and lectured on this subject at many conferences.

Charles oversaw a major strengthening of our collection in a number of areas, including Rabbinics, Hellenistic Judaism and Hebrew literature. He greatly expanded the now extensive collection of Judaica microforms. He taught a course every year on Judaica Bibliography, and for several years also taught a course on the use of Rabbinic sources.

In 1988 Charles took on the added responsibility of Head of Special Collections. He maintained the high quality of service and access established by his predecessor Victor Berch. He coordinated the transition to the new Farber Archives, and for several years held the title of University Archivist. Charles took pride in finding interesting speakers for the annual Rolde Lectures and for special occasions.

I have worked with Charles for almost 25 years, and can say without any exaggeration that his reference assistance to patrons has been outstanding. His fellow employees all appreciate his respectful and pleasant approach toward others. The Library staff wishes Charles all the best on his retirement.

--Jim Rosenbloom  

First Commencement, 1952. Photo by Ralph Norman.

On the lawn (where the orchard is currently) beside Ford Hall. Faculty in the foreground, graduates in the front rows of the audience, and Eleanor Roosevelt addressing the crowd.  

• Thomas D. Rossing. Science of Percussion Instruments. World Scientific, 2000.

Read his book for a fascinating world tour of percussion instruments, ancient and modern. Learn the difference between crotales (thick small cymbals) and crotals (closed bells with a pellet inside). It is possible to enjoy this book on many levels, whether one is a student of science, a musician, an instrument builder, or just somebody who enjoys music.

• Richard M. DeGraaf and Mariko Yamasaki. New England Wildlife: Habitat, Natural History and Distibution. University Press of New England, 2001.

Now that New England is reawakening from a long, snowy winter, we can stretch our legs and reconnect with the world outdoors. This book offers a comprehensive compilation of the natural history, distribution and habitat relationships of the region’s amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The black and white illustrations are a delight.

• Townsend Ludington, ed. A Modern Mosaic: Art and Modernism in the United States. University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

A fascinating collection of 14 interdisciplinary essays on the modernist movement as found in American literature, painting, sculpture, music, architecture, dance, photography, and film from the late 19th century to the present. The artists address such topics as modernism and postmodernism at the 1893 World’s Fair, race in modern American freak shows, female embodiments of Southern modernism, machine art, modernism in federal public art, and Edward Hopper and the cinema.

• Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 1848-1907: A Master of American Sculpture. Paris: Somogy, 1999.

A masterful exhibition catalog of the monumental retrospective of nearly 130 works by Saint-Gaudens at the Musée des Augustins de Toulouse and the Musée de la Coopération franco-américaine, Château de Blérancourt in 1999. The essays in the catalog center around Saint-Gaudens’ works (which, though deeply influence by French sculpture, stood at the center of the American Renaissance movement) as a key to understanding the complex links between France and the United States in the 19th century. They are also fascinating studies of American patronage at the time.

• Beatrice K. Otto. Fools are Everywhere: The Court Jester Around the World. The University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Otto looks at the figure of the court jester throughout history and from around the world, including China, India, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas. Not always dressed in cap and bells, these characters lampooned anything deemed sacrosanct - religion, corrupt rulers, self-important scholars - and in the process had a humanizing influence on people of power and position.

• Edgar Peters Bowron, ed. Romantics, Realists, Revolutionaries: Masterpieces of 19th-Century German Painting from the Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig. Prestel, 2000.

This exhibition catalog documents a joint exhibit of 84 masterpieces of 19th-century German art that took place in Leipzig and at the Museum of Fines Arts, Houston in 2000. The exhibition focuses on two key issues: that Germans were far more unified by their literary heritage than by the visual arts, and that from 1840 to 1880 German artists had a profound impact on artistic life in America.

• John E. Crowley. The Invention of Comfort: Sensibilities and Design in Early Modern Britain and Early America. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Crowley argues that the creation of our modern ideas about physical comfort depended on a fashion-conscious public being made to feel discomfort with surroundings that it had previously perceived as functionally adequate. The book covers climate, fire, food, clothing, the senses, and anxiety about the night.