News & Events

Endowment Fine-tunes Library Holdings

This piece, requested by British Scholar Michael Talbot, depicts the basso ripieno part of Giacobbe Cervetto’s Concerto for flute found in the “Musica de la Theatro” set at MPAL.

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Any library ends up being many things to many people, but for the Music and Performing Arts Library, its reach is particularly broad.

Serving students and scholars in music, theater, and dance—as well as arts lovers from the nearby community and around the world—the library contains approximately 400,000 items in a wide range of formats, including books, journals, printed music, and audio and video recordings.

“That puts us third [at the University of Illinois] for physical holdings,” said head librarian Kirstin Johnson, and, aside from the Newberry Library in Chicago and Northwestern University, “the most significant” repository of music materials in the state.

In addition to its circulating collections, the Music and Performing Arts Library (MPAL) houses numerous special collections (which comprise just over 25 percent of MPAL’s total holdings), most notably source materials for both the , historic U.S. sheet music, and the library’s working reproducing player piano and rolls. Keeping thousands of rare items catalogued and accessible remains an ongoing challenge.

Enter the King Endowment, created in 1996 in honor of Lawrence Stanford King ’68 LAS, JD ’73 LAW, a lifelong opera buff who also donated his private compilation of more than 50,000 opera recordings and other music materials. The fund was first such named endowment that provides student workers who assist MPAL in working with its special collections. Verifying these early print and manuscript scores and books that contributes not only to campus-related research but also to the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM), an international inventory of musical sources, a project that Illinois joined when RISM launched in the 1950s.

Using support from the endowment, “we’ve been improving our records locally and in the RISM catalog to better describe our oldest and rarest holdings,” Johnson said. “After doing that, we started having international scholars contacting us.” Recently, this work enabled MPAL to provide answers for Michael Talbot, a British scholar seeking information about “Musica de la Theatro,” a set of English stage music by popular composers in the 1700s. Because MPAL was able to locate and share these items from its holdings, Johnson said, Talbot could create a modern edition of one of the works that had never been published before.

“I’m sure you will from now on be getting countless enquiries and/or requests for reproductions relating to this set,” Talbot wrote to MPAL. “I have never seen anything like this collection elsewhere.”

The renovated 1927 Steinway Model M walnut piano and approximately 1,500 player piano rolls are available by appointment.

 

Catalog, inventory, and assessment work underwritten by the King Endowment has also identified materials better suited for care and housing in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library or the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music, two campus entities with which MPAL works closely. Future work will include converting those rare items that haven’t yet been digitized so that interested scholars worldwide can access them readily.

But just plain music lovers—including non-music majors—also benefit from MPAL’s vast resources. “We serve anybody who’s either studying or enjoying the arts,” Johnson said, pointing to an email from recent alumnus Kevin Lyvers (’24 ENG). Before the electrical and computer engineering student graduated in May, he reminisced about his campus experience in an email to her. “Hearing the Gershwin piece ‘played’ by Gershwin [on the player piano] blew my mind,” he wrote, “and made me think about all the amazing free gifts the MPAL has given to me. [I] must have checked out close to 60 items just from the MPAL throughout my time, and very rarely was it for a class. It was mainly for pure enjoyment, exploration, and curiosity. I was able to keep my music passions driving and fed because of all the resources, staff, materials, and resources that library has.

“I’ve read plays, theory texts, journals, even used a database or two. I’ve learned so many important things, and also a lot of trivial fun-facts. My college experience would not have been anywhere near what it was without the limitless items in the MPAL and library system.

“Thank you so much.”

ON ANOTHER NOTE

A completed feasibility study awaits further campus action regarding improvements for the Music and Performing Arts Library. The building, located across the street from the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, was constructed in 1974 and has had few updates in its 50-year history.

While no space will be added to the facility, plans call for rearranging the interior to improve accessibility, provide better care for the collection, and make the library more usable for 21st century patrons and staff. Currently, an elevator exists in the building (but not in the library portion), doors lack push-button openings, and stairs are not to code. Rooms, shelving, and stairs would be repositioned for better accessibility, lighting, comfort, and appeal.

“It’s just a better use of the space,” said head librarian Kirstin Johnson of the multimillion-dollar proposal. “The renovations would not only get things up to code, they would make the space more inviting and welcoming.”

A conceptual drawing of the Music & Performing Arts Library’s entrance and desk
MPAL open stacks and casual study concept drawing