Conference Agenda

For a number of years now, three different music collections have been brought together to form the Music Floor in The Hague Public Library. Merging three diverse collections presents a number of challenges. The nature of the collections and their target audiences vary greatly. The question is how to connect an educational library (Royal Conservatoire), a public library (The Hague Public Library), and a special library (Collections Netherlands Music Institute). What choices do you make with regard to the system and the catalog format? Is Marc21 the right choice, and does it work as long as the institutions operate in different systems? What are the advantages and disadvantages of Marc21 when it comes to cataloging sheet music?
This presentation will attempt to identify the problems that arise and formulate possible solutions.
The Music Floor is a unique collaboration in the Netherlands. At a time when public libraries are drastically downsizing or cutting back on their music collections, The Hague is creating the largest publicly accessible music collection in the Netherlands.

This presentation outlines the endeavor of the Music Library of Greece “Lilian Voudouri” to reach out to the D/deaf and hard of hearing community in order to create an accessible and inclusive music appreciation workshop.

The project “Resonance: Music appreciation for the D/deaf and hard of hearing” formed as part of The Europe Challenge programme that brings together teams from libraries and communities across Europe to address the challenges libraries face today. In the project, representatives from both the Music Library and the D/deaf and hard of hearing community, through the cultural organization NGO liminal, worked as a team.

At the heart of the project lies the principle of co-design. The process included a number of open sessions with a varied range of participants such as music professionals, D/deaf and hard of hearing individuals and sign language interpreters. Through the content and feedback gathered from the open sessions the final goal of an inclusive workshop of music appreciation takes shape.

To support the dissemination of knowledge and experience gained from this project, a toolkit with specific strategies and good practices has been comprised providing a valuable resource for other libraries who aspire for openness.

This presentation seeks to highlight the ways in which the Music Library of Greece “Lilian Voudouri” of the Friends of Music Society and its staff aspire, through communication as an essential tool of public service, to bridge needs and human identities. Among other aspects, it presents the diverse groups of people who visit the Library, the reasons they choose this space, as well as the needs, expectations, and experiential backgrounds they bring with them. Furthermore, it addresses what “service in practice” means for us, through all the everyday duties that constitute it. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of communication and effective communicative practices in fostering relationships of trust with our community. The presentation also discusses the recurring challenges that test our professional role and explores how these challenges, together with the broader experience of public service, may be transformed into opportunities for learning and critical reflection—opportunities that contribute to our ongoing development and enhance our capacity to build meaningful bridges between needs and human identities.