1977
Today marks 40 days until our our 40th meeting! To celebrate, MOUG Social Media will highlight each and every of our 40 years. To get you excited for 1978-2018, let’s tell you about 1977:
In October, 1977, the first issue of the MOUG Newsletter was published. It featured the report of the OCLC Task Force on Cataloging of Music Scores and Sound Recordings (our ancestor), as well as the very first draft of the MOUG Bylaws, the very first slate of nominees for MOUG Board members, and the very first announcement of the very first annual MOUG meeting, which was held Monday, February 27, 1978, directly preceding the MLA meeting in Boston, Massachusetts. Representatives from NELINET were scheduled to attend, as was Sharon Walbridge, OCLC’s representative to the task force (the very first Jay!).
The first nominees were Pamela Berlin, Olga Buth, Barbara Denison, Karen A. Hagberg, Ann E. Hess, David Knapp, Glenn Patton, Vicky Skinner, and Karl Van Ausdal.
How’s that for a Throwback Thursday? #MOUGat40
[December 21, 2017]
1978
As we move toward our 40th Anniversary meeting, we are celebrating each of our 40 years, one day at a time. Today is 39 days until MOUG@40!
The Music OCLC Users Group Newsletter no. 2 was published in September of 1978. Look! We have become official enough for an ISSN!
The first Executive Board had been elected, and our membership was 114 individuals and 70 institutions. The board consisted of Karen A. Hagberg as Chair, Olga Buth as Vice-Chair, Pamela F. Starr as Secretary, Ann E. Hess as Treasurer, and Karl Van Ausdal as the first, ever Continuing Education Coordinator. We had $621 in our checking account in the 1st quarter, and the membership dues were only $3 for individuals. We also created an Advisory Board, which consisted of a liaison from each of the OCLC Networks to MOUG. Here’s a flashback for you: Those networks were AMIGOS, CAPCON, FAUL, ILLINET, Michigan Library Consortium, NEBASE, NELINET, SUNY, and Wisconsin Library Consortium.
The idea of “enhancement” to records by librarians who were not employed at OCLC was just starting to take shape, and this Newsletter issue featured what is likely the very first version of “Ask Jay” with questions and answers collected during the inaugural meeting and in later communications–pre-Jay of course!
The first annual meeting drew in approximately 250 attendees, but though the not-yet-official MOUG sessions were part of the MLA program, it turned out that so many of the original MOUGgles were not MLAers also, which confused registration. MOUG apologized for the confusion, and encouraged readers to “Join MLA!”
The issue closed with responses to a collection/institution demographic questionnaire, but even more engaging was a bit of humor:
“COP-OUT OF THE YEAR DEPT.” (Overheard at the Open Forum in Boston) “Don’t look at me, I don’t input, I just search!”
[December 22, 2017]
1979
38 days to #MOUGat40! That means it’s 1979 in MOUG History:
The recently elected chair, Karen A. Hagberg, resigns her post with MOUG and her position at Eastman to put her time into pursuing publishing and editing New Women’s Times. The next MOUG meeting takes place March 26-27 (originally scheduled for January 8-9) at OCLC in Columbus,OH, where one of the first versions of Ask MOUG (now part of Ask Everything) occurred. The meeting was a rousing success, and began with a workshop for future MARC tagging workshop presenters!
The Vice-Chair, Olga Buth, has become Chair, and has appointed THE Ralph Papakhian as the next Vice-Chair, and Ralph also replaces Pamela Starr as MOUG Newsletter Editor, and brings his new co-worker, Sue Stancu, along as a co-editor–the beginning of the notorious dynamic duo, Ralph and Sue.
MARC 041 and 240 were clarified, and the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University received an NEH grant to catalog recordings. A note is made that, if you get an LC card that doesn’t match an OCLC record, to let OCLC know, which pre-dates the cooperative version of OCLC as we know it.
Plans start to come into place for the 3rd annual meeting where MOUG precedes MLA, for the 2nd time, in San Antonio 1980. Robert Cunningham begins to take suggestions for program content as chairperson of the Program Committee (pre-CEC), and OCLC starts investigating the potential of standardized workforms. Ann Hess at the University of Cincinnati also begins collecting backlog statistics for publication in MOUG Newsletters.
The OCLC Users Council, acting on behalf of music users, implored the Librarian of Congress to make a concerted effort to transform music catalog records into MARC data, and members share information about their collections and work, or ask questions of interest to the membership.
HISTORY PRECEDES US: MOUG Newsletter no. 4 posed this brief question: “Has someone started a petition opposing the implementation of AACR2?” AACR to AACR2 was like AACR2 to RDA for those of us who witnessed it!
[December 23, 2017]
1980
37 days, then it’s MOUG@40! Let’s keep celebrating!
Glenn Patton was elected As Chair at the 1980, 3rd annual meeting, in San Antonio. That meeting, the second held in connection with MLA, was the “beginning of a formal relationship with the Music Library Association.” As many of you know, we regularly meet preceding MLA, and there is a reason for that! It officially started here, folks!
The 1980-1982 officers were elected, which included Glenn Patton as Chair, Ruth W. Tucker as Vice-Chair, A. Ralph Papakhian as Secretary and Newsletter Editor, Richard Smiraglia as Treasurer, and Christina Wolcott as Continuing Education Officer.
ILL via OCLC moves to phase 2 after it’s recent inception (1979), and the acquisitions subsystem is still in its planning phase. MOUG becomes an official member of the new MLA subcommittee charged with liaising with user groups. Michael Gorman, co-editor of AACR2, was the featured speaker in San Antonio, and discussed format integration and the role of OCLC in the success of standard changes.
By March 1980, we had 345 members, and 347 by July. The results of the highly quantitative research, MOUG OCLC Cataloging Survey, were published, and later OCLC responded with its plans to address the problems noted in that survey, in true responsive-OCLC fashion! In fact, the MOUG Newsletter is used as a way for members to alert OCLC to problems and for OCLC to respond about corrections. MOUG publishes The Music OCLC Users Group Tagging Workbook and Reference Manual for a whopping $5.25.
Glenn Patton moves to OCLC and abdicates the throne to David Knapp, because the Vice-Chair’s institution defected to RLIN. The University of Illinois music library told us about its implementation of AACR2. OCLC, though established for cataloging purposes, is recognized as a useful tool for reference (even without the ability to search by subject heading!), a liaison is appointed to the Reference Interest Group of MLA (the ancestor of our Reference, Discovery, and Collection Coordinator), and Catalogers are recognized for having the advantage of having an item in hand when searching a bibliographic utility like OCLC.
Bob Keene regales is with his curated list of “goofs” in records found in OCLC, noting aptly that “the machine is only as good as the humans who use it.” He finished with an afterthought: “Are there any libraries out there that have tried connecting video games to your terminal when response time is slow?”
We’ll leave you with this: the entree choices for the next annual meeting’s luncheon included crepes a la reine, scrod, and pot roast (sorry, vegetarians)! #MOUGat40
[December 24, 2017]
1981
Happy Christmas, to those who celebrate! Our best wishes to all of our church musicians, too, who are still working through this music-heavy season!
You guessed it! We are moving along to our 4th year, so there are 36 more days until MOUG@40!
It’s 1981, your Social Media Coordinator has been born, and we have started the year with a new masthead on our Newsletter! MOUG had an ad hoc committee look at ways in which to enrich OCLC with music materials published before the MARC music format came to be. Robert Cunningham, who was at OCLC now, told us about the bib maintenance he had completed on our stuff.
Michael Fling, retired now from Indiana University, has been our primary newsman on the OCLC For Reference beat, and even included a fun poem about seeking out a book about a composer after a reference question similar to “it’s got a green cover”–It’s called “Scriabin” and it’s by an author whose name starts with “Mac-,” which was difficult with the lack of subject searching capabilities! As it turns out, among his many talents, Fling was also the designer of the new masthead for the Newsletter (thank you, Michael!)
OCLC was working on getting name/title analytic tracings added to the database, working through the OCLC Musical Recordings Analytics Consortium (OMRAC) and asking for our advice. The annual meeting in New Haven was a success, as expected! The guidelines distributed at the MARC Tagging for Music workshop were published in the Newsletter, as were the papers presented by Louise Golderg at Eastman and Jennie Meyer Howard at the Kennedy School of Government Library. The next meeting was in the planning stages, to be held February 1 in Santa Monica, California!
For those who worked on OCLC terminals, you may remember when the character limit of a bibliographic record was 4096 and the field limit was 50, and if you tried to enter more, the record you’d been working so hard on entering would be cancelled outright. In 1981, OCLC implemented warning messages to give you the opportunity to amend your record to within the limits, preventing an utter waste of time. By October, OCLC had 184,112 sound recordings and 150,943 music scores in the database.
In December, former MOUG Chair Glenn Patton was named as the new OCLC liaison to MOUG, and the slate of nominees for the Board for the next 2 years was presented. You’ll find out tomorrow who was elected! #MOUGat40
[December 25, 2017]
1982
1982 is here! It’s now 35 days until MOUG@40, and I know you are getting excited!
Santa Monica was another successful meeting, and now we are preparing for the next meeting in Philadelphia. Richard Smiraglia, whose name many of our members will recognize from his formative publications in music cataloging, has been elected Chair, with Joan Swanekamp as Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, Sue Ellen Stancu as Secretary/Newsletter Editor, Joseph W. Scott as Treasurer, and Timothy P. Robson as Continuing Education Coordinator (that’s the first time we’ve seen that title, too! The original CEC!)
The Santa Monica meeting was full of informative presentations, including one on the role of paraprofessionals in music cataloging, and another MARC tagging workshop, an extraordinarily popular and timely topic, lending to its recurrence. MOUG is among its colleagues in eagerly awaiting the Enhance program (which has evolved to the Expert Community as of this posting).
The Library of Congress has stopped using “with” notes to connect separate records for each part of a compilation (as you may know, those were in MARC 501, and at least doubled the size of a database of sound recordings), and the MOUG Newsletter told us how to handle that major change.
Starting out in 1982, our checking account had $1,255.93, and MOUG applied for tax-exempt status for the first time!
But, most importantly, JAY WEITZ has started working at OCLC, and replaces Robert Cunningham in working with us on music cataloging things. Glenn Patton remains our official liaison, but JAY WEITZ does a lot of projects to keep us going, including updating the database with a year’s worth of change requests, and transforming the word “subfield” into a verb–subfielded–as he describes his project to convert uniform titles to AACR2 rules. (As you may have heard, Jay Weitz is your Social Media Coordinator’s patronus.) #MOUGat40
[December 26, 2017]
1983
MOUG has turned 6 in 1983, with 34 years left until MOUG@40!
OCLC publishes an annual report that grabs the attention of the MOUG Chair because it is in color! Richard Smiraglia notes that it is an indication that OCLC is “well, and beginning to achieve a sort of stable corporate maturity.” He goes on to muse “given the incredible rate of technological change in our field today…” could anyone have imagined we would be celebrating our 40th anniversary via social media?
The Bylaws are revised, and the Network Advisory Council appointees are listed. Here’s a real throwback for you…those networks are AFLI, AMIGOS, BCR, CAPCON, FEDLINK, ILLINET, INCOLSA, MIDLNET, MINITEX, MLC, NLC, NELINET, OHIONET, PALINET, PRLC, SOLINET, SUNY/OCLC, OCLC/WESTERN, and WLC.
This Social Media Coordinator, former Continuing Education Coordinator, and Newsletter Editor of the Music Library Association (MLA), will not even tell you what was being considered for the annual meeting, until she observes the progress of the discussion in future years–spoiler alert, we consider not meeting with MLA, partly because it is expensive to pay for speakers to travel to our meetings (because relying on MOUG members as speakers is “not necessarily a satisfactory solution.” I’m offended, are you? As we say these days, #FirstWorldProblems)–thankfully the next meeting is at least at the OCLC Headquarters in Dublin, Ohio, which is pretty new, and will be in conjunction with our cohorts in Online Audiovisual Catalogers (OLAC).
This card catalog connoisseur enjoys reading about Rice University’s recon project to transform their card catalogs into MARC, and this sound recordings cataloger enjoys reading about OCLC’s loading of Library of Congress AV records along with the “normal” formats. The limit on the number of records retrieved in a search, 256, proves exceptionally difficult when trying to get a listing of all of Bach’s works (Bach,Joh,S), as you could imagine as he was a prolific composer.
An early version of the thematic catalog citation format is published in the Newsletter, as is OPAC Interface Adequacy Assessment Guide as part of the Public Access to Online Catalogs session of the Philadelphia meeting. The next members of the Executive Board were elected (announced next year!) and the prospect of allowing less-than-utopian input standards is entered into discussion. That’s a good one to read more about in the November 1983 issue! #MOUGat40
1984
1984. No, not that 1984, the actual year! It’s 33 days until MOUG@40!
From Newsletter no. 21: “MOUG has begun 1984 on an optimistic note. Very recently the Music Online system at LC began operating–MARC records for music and sound recordings are at last a reality, and it’s only a matter of time before they begin to appear in the Online Union Catalog (OLUC) [i.e. OCLC/WorldCat]…MOUG and the music library community at large, owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to those who have labored so hard for so many years to bring these developments to fruition.”
WHAT A YEAR! MUSIC MARC RECORDS ARE REAL!
Because we meet with OLAC at OCLC Headquarters this year, the program is full of hands-on workshops. And, would you believe it, there is no official hotel (though the Social Media Coordinator would be fine sleeping in the same box as WorldCat…) The suggested hotels, however, have nightly rates ranging from $27-$60! Those were the days! The registration fee is $25, meaning that, in the course of 40 years to 2018, the registration has only risen $65.
MOUG begins to have an identity crisis. From no. 22: “There is concern that MOUG is looked upon mainly as a cataloging organization. Part of MOUG’s problem with getting things from OCLC is that we are a very small percentage of the users, and we seem to have trouble expressing our needs in terms that are understandable to administrators and networks.” The group also discussed whether MOUG should expand its scope beyond OCLC.
What a change now! MOUG is one of the most active groups in eliciting change in OCLC systems, as witnessed recently in getting the MARC 382 field to display in the most useful and logical way based on our input. We do still have the problem with being seen singly as a cataloging organization, though…
The Enhance program, in it’s original form, began with 5 libraries getting trained up and being allowed to make specific enhancements to MARC records in OCLC. Those libraries included Indiana University, Oberlin College, New England Conservatory, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and University of Texas at Austin.
The latest Board was elected, and included Chair Joan Swanekamp, Vice Chair/Chair-Elect Joan Schuitema, Secretary/Newsletter Editor Sue Stancu, Treasurer Judy Weidow, and Continuing Education Coordinator Don Hixon. The Vivaldi Project was completed (1300+ Vivaldi uniform titles updated).
Next year…Louisville! March 3-4, preceding MLA.
[December 28, 2017]
1985
1985 comes next! Which means 32 days to MOUG@40!
Richard E. Jones, who had been coordinating MOUG’s Retrospective Music Project (REMUS) has been trained by the Library of Congress to particpate in the fairly new NACO project by creating name authority records. He will now be able to go out and train others. Here’s the beginning of what we now know as NMP!
3 ad-hoc committees were formed to carry out some of the desired activities of MOUG, including the Ad-Hoc Committee on Academic Library Needs (Ralph Papakhian, chair (it was his birthday today)), the Ad-Hoc Union List of Serials Committee (Ann McCollough, chair), and the Ad-Hoc Online Systems Committee (Don Green, chair). By the time we finished 1984, we were up to $3,775.43 in our account!
A new edition of OCLC’s Bibliographic Input Standards is published, in *print*, which we now know online as Bibliographic Formats and Standards. The annual meeting in Louisville was a success. 19 more libraries are added to the Enhance program for scores/sound recordings.
Jay Weitz’ “Correspondence from OCLC” column indicates that readers are interested in hearing what he has to say about oddities he encounters while cataloging, which is likely the impetus for the “Ask Jay” column and the later publication of “Cataloger’s Judgement.” The first topic is the relatively new indexing of the MARC 028 field, which is a critical point of access for music materials!
Another MOUGgle Board member gets a job at OCLC (Joan Schuitema) and MOUG has decided to plan the next annual meeting in Milwaukee, WI in conjunction with MLA again. A National Plan for Retrospective Conversion in Music is introduced (for folks newer to the field, that’s RECON, which is transferring data typed on a card to data typed into the MARC format). #MOUGat40
[December 29, 2017]
1986
MOUG@40! Let’s keep celebrating by peeking at our history!
In 1986, we reach our 30th issue of the Newsletter, now that it is regularly published 3-4 times each year. Unfortunately, the year also took Glenn Patton away as our OCLC liaison, replaced by MOUG’s own Joan Schuitema. Glenn moves up at OCLC, and Joan is a logical successor!
A new year also means we have a new Executive Board: Timothy Robson, Chair, Joan Swanekamp, Past Chair, Don Hixon, Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, AnnMcCollough, Secretary/Newsletter Editor, Pam Juengling, Treasurer, and Dean W. Corwin, Continuing Education Coordinator. Though the turnover has been at least yearly due to job transitions among our leaders, the Board members are elected to 2-year positions.
OCLC gets a redesign in the entire system (the Oxford Project), which will be installed starting at the end of 1986. The Milwaukee meeting is another success for the organization, with Glenn, Joan, and Jay Weitz telling us about what’s happening at OCLC, Michael Fling telling us about using M-300-compatible software for a micro computer (like Wordstar, Volkswriter, Lotus 1-2-3, etc.), and our discussion groups shared a wealth of information. Excitingly, MOUG and OLAC work together to get a liaison between the two groups!
Then, after a few Whereas, we heard “Be it resolved, that this 1986 Annual Meeting of the Music OCLC Users Group expresses its sincere appreciation to the Online Computer Library Center [(OCLC)] for implementing the Music MARC format and loading LC Music MARC tapes.” This action put music into the fold of mainstream bibliographic control! This extensive tape-load also spurred what is likely the first instance of Duplicate Detection and Resolution (DDR), though imperfect!
Libraries are starting to buy those newfangled microcomputers, which starts the eventuality of OCLC terminal dismissal for catalogers. But, MOUG, having noticed the usefulness of OCLC for other music users of the system, is looking to expand its membership and goals to include more of those users!
MOUG will meet next year in Eugene, OR, with MLA again, February 10-11. #MOUGat40
[December 30, 2017]
1987
Well, hello 1987! Would you like to celebrate MOUG@40 with us?
The trend of MOUG Chairs to leave their posts in music libraries continues! Timothy Robson was moved to Acting Head of Bibliographic Services for the University Libraries at Case Western Reserve University. However, this one intends to continue his post as MOUG Chair until the term runs out naturally.
The first edition of “Best of MOUG” was published, and is available for a whopping $5! The OCLC database reached over 15 million thanks in part to our adding 32,275 scores and 60,263 sound recordings. And, like we said it would happen last year, OCLC is completely phasing out its 100 and 105 terminals, and upgrading even the newer M300 terminal to the M300 XT!
We also see examples of the new screen display and functionality at our meeting in Eugene, OR–the main menu is driven by functions, and we can use “search intake screens” to do our searching, but, we can also use our old, familiar commands if desired. Interestingly, in the new search capabiities, “the concept behind searching is that everything is ‘anded’ together…” (your Social Media Coordinator’s new favorite words are “anding” and “subfielded”).
The origin of the formal NACO Music Project (NMP) is still at it, even if slowly. Regarding the Enhance project, Jay Weitz says the following: “With the advent of the New Online System, Enhance may eventually die out…in a perfect world, everyone would be an Enhance Library.” Just wait until he sees us still at it in 2018!
In order to “grow MOUG”, our members suggest many things, including cooperative MLA/MOUG program sessions (particularly concerning the public service implications of the new OCLC online system).” Spoiler Alert: we do that pretty regularly now, and even recently convened a joint task force to explore the latest OCLC product! #MOUGat40
[December 31, 2017]
1988
New Year, New Year! 1988! Let’s take time in our 40th anniversary celebration to celebrate our 10th! #MOUGat40
The year’s Newsletters start with an issue dedicated to looking back in our 10th year. Ralph Papakhian has been appointed as the first Coordinator for the now-official NACO-Music Project (NMP) (sprung from the REMUS Project). MOUG meets with MLA again in Minneapolis.
This Social Media Coordinator has found her match in Ann McCollough, Secretary/Newsletter Editor (1986-1988), who has solicited retrospective overviews from the Board to celebrate MOUG’s 10th in a similar way that we are celebrating the 40th! “Best of MOUG” has been “a real best seller!” reaching $1,000 in sales. It is becoming clear to OCLC that MOUG means business and will be one of its biggest allies in making sure its systems reach their greatest potential: “…MOUG membership possesses not only a good understanding of current library automation issues, but also is willing to work with OCLC to provide useful products and services.” (Go us!)
Ooh, no. 34 (January 1988) includes the first Questions & Answers (a.k.a. Ask Jay) in its modern form. And it has some beautiful questions and answers. I wish I could post them all! Just go read them. Our new Board members are: Don Hixon, Chair, Timothy Robson, Past Chair, Linda Barnhart, Secretary/Newsletter Editor, Candice Feldt, Treasurer, Laura Snyder, Continuing Education Coordinator, and Joan Schuitema, OCLC Liaison (the first time the OCLC Liaison is included as a Board member).
Our original Mission Statement is adopted: The mission of the Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG) is to identify and provide an official means of communication and assistance for those users of the products and services of the Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC) concerned with music materials in any area of library service, in pursuit of quality music coverage in these products and services.
“Best of MOUG” is published in its 2nd edition. Our new goals include communication, user education, and assisting OCLC in product development. Someone suggests MOUG appoint a committee for reference services. And someone has the gall to suggest that MOUG has accomplished its goals and should disband and become an interest group in MLA. Of course, our membership shut that down so that we don’t “bog down in the MLA bureaucracy.” The idea is discussed further at the Summer Board meeting, and they agree.
The 3rd masthead logo is created by Chameleon Graphics, giving MOUG “a very distinctive and high tech look.” You will certainly see this one for the long haul!
The MOUG NACO-Music Project is well underway, and MARC format integration is begun. AACR2 revised (eventually known as AACR2r, but originally under the pet name of AACR2 1/2) has come. (In fact, if you have been involved in transitioning to RDA from AACR2r, you should read the November 1988 Newsletter to find out more about the AACR2 revised presentation at ALA–I promise it will be enlightening.)
[January 1, 2018]
1989
MOUG@40 celebrating brings us today to 1989! #MOUGat40
In true MOUG fashion, 1989 starts with some personnel changes. First, OCLC MOUG Liaison Joan Schuitema has left OCLC (that’s a first!) and will be Technical services Librarian in the Music Library at Northwestern University. Ron Gardner was interim MOUG liaison from OCLC in her place, and then it became official that Jay Weitz was her permanent replacement And so begins the era of Jay. Also, Jennifer Bowen of Sibley Music Library at Eastman School of Music has been elected as Vice Chair/Chair-Elect! What else? Best of MOUG, 3rd edition is published!
We meet in Cleveland, Ohio, March 19-20, directly *following* MLA. Much of our program is centered around authority control in an online environment. When asked at the business meeting whether we would prefer 1/2, 1, or 1 1/2 days for our annual meeting, most of us said 1 day (this SMC and former CEC notes that in recent times, 1 day was not enough to warrant members making the trip, so the meeting has been extended to 1 1/2 days over the past few years).
As it turns out, Questions & Answers is done by multiple people in multiple publications, so we sometimes hear from others via publication in a different newsletter, such as OLAC. An index to now. 1-40 is published. You may also like to note that Bach is the top composer in OCLC, and “The Folk Songs of North America, in the English Language” by Alan Lomax is the top score. And, Arizona State University has the most scores in OCLC.
Interesting statistics by 1989: While books take up 85% of OCLC and serials come in 2nd with nearly 6%, scores take up 2% and sound recordings take up nearly 3%. The average number of characters in a bibliographic record for a score is 544, while the average for a sound recording is 803. Besides the MARC 500 and MARC 650 fields, the MARC 245 field is most frequent.
Also interesting is that LC has caught up to the music world and is going to catalog a whole book as one book, and wants to stop coding MARC 045, 047, and 048 for music. As you would imagine, that has sparked a letter campaign, published in our August 1989 issue, from readers who are incensed at the idea that LC would “again…lead the way into the past!!!” A later note from a member of LC tells us that they continue to receive comments about it, “divided among those which express disagreement–with varying degrees of vehemence–and those which reluctantly concede that the position is a reasonable one.” (Is that LC throwing shade?)
[January 2, 2018]
1990
Surprise! We’ve made it to the 90s! Our MOUG@40 celebration starts 264 |c 1990-1999 off with a bang, looking back at 1990! #MOUGat40
MOUG gets in on the archiving business, contracting with the University of Maryland, College Park to collect, house, and maintain our archive, like our counterparts at MLA/IAML-US, MENC, etc. The MOUG archives will later become part of the Special Collections in Performing Arts. The MOUG Officers Handbook has also been completed, 10 years in the making.
Organizationally, MOUG has increased individual membership dues to $10 ($25 for institutional members), bringing us more in line with other organizations like ours. At the time, it was a $7 dollar increase for individuals ($15 for institutions), but was not deemed too drastic. The next Executive Board was also elected: Jennifer Bowen, Chair, Don Hixon, Past Chair, Candice Feldt, Treasurer, Karen Little, Secretary/Newsletter Editor, Stephen Wright, Continuing Education Coordinator, and of course, Jay Weitz, OCLC Liaison.
The MOUG Annual Meeting Survey results indicated that a majority prefer to meet in conjunction with MLA in some way or another, and some supported meeting at ALA or with OLAC again. The first version of a list of thematic indexes and reference works used by LC in creating uniform titles is compiled, and the Illiad of MARC for music, “Music Coding and Tagging: MARC Content Designation for Scores and Sound Recordings,” was published by our OCLC Liaison, Jay Weitz.
OCLC‘s EPIC service allows for subject searching and keywords in uniform titles, making MOUG very happy, but not without limitations addressed by MOUG. Last year, the first NACO-Music participants (Indiana, Eastman, and later Northwestern) created or changed 1417 records. And, the top sound recording in OCLC is “Times of Your Life” by Up with People (OCLC #6967038).
In the beginning, MOUG was making a difference in the field of music cataloging and access, which will carry into the distant future. The business meeting in Tuscon, Arizona, included the following resolution in response to LC’s interest in discontinuing MARC 045, 047, and 048 coding:
“The Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG) recognizes that fields 045, 047, and 048 of the MARC Music Format provide necessary and essential access points for the effective retrieval of bibliographic records in music. Although at this point in time use of these fields has been limited, given the current evolution of most automated systems, it would be premature to consciously and consistently omit this data when readily available from bibliographic records for music. MOUG strongly urges the Library of Congress, and all libraries that catalog music using the MARC format, to continue the use of these fields. Further, MOUG is committed to working with the Library of Congress and the Music Library Association through its various committees.”
As it turns out, OCLC’s LS/2000 system actually does utilize the 048 for searching for a specific instrument. NOTIS can do similar things if one knows the MARC tags. The way of the future? [Don’t even get the Social Media Coordinator started…]
But, perhaps most importantly, MOUG has created the Public Services Interest Group to be coordinated by Sarah Long. This is the first official endeavor by MOUG to expressly serve its public services-oriented members in more ways.
And, as UCSD and NMP say, “PLEASE CATALOG PROKOFIEV!”
[January 3, 2018]
1991
One thousand nine hundred and ninety one! Ah ah ah! That’s right, we are looking back at MOUG in 1991 for our MOUG@40 celebration! #MOUGat40
Laura Snyder was elected Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, and Ann Churukian was elected Treasurer! MOUG will meet in Baltimore next year, specifically prior to the MLA pre-conference on small academic libraries so that MOUG members may attend both. MOUG is also really cooking with gas on our finances, as we reach the $10,000 mark. And, as expected, the 3rd edition of Best of MOUG has sold out!
The NMP expands to 8 participants, and reaches the 3000 mark of records contributed in the project. LC makes some big changes to their process, driven in part by a arrearage (SAT word!) of nearly 40 million items waiting for cataloging–and you thought your backlog was huge! Those changes include starting to do copy cataloging utilizing the records created by others, and developing “brief records” (~AACR2 Level 1) especially for popular music recordings.
Sarah P. Long has published the first Public Services Forum column in the Newsletter. Ooh, the first reference to a collective name for MOUG members is seen in print, MOUGer, by one of the future SMC’s heroes, H. Stephen Wright [the Social Media Coordinator, who expressly uses MOUGgle (a pop culture reference) is humbled by her hero’s use and will revert to MOUGer, but likely use both interchangeably…]
And, sadly, OCLC makes a 5% decrease in personnel on February 18, 1991. [This is extra crushing because it happened on the OCLC Fangirl/Social Media Coordinator’s 10th birthday…]
MOUG Chair quote of the century (by Jennifer Bowen): “As I spend the summer adjusting to yet another set of new procedures and priorities, it becomes more and more evident that this sort of constant change–technological and otherwise–is now often the reality which MOUG members are facing!”
[January 4, 2018]
1992
May I give something to you? What about 1992? #MOUGat40
The Music Division and the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division of LC have both grown! Music has 31 staff members dedicated to processing archival collections, and there are 3 more recorded sound catalogers! MOUG Baltimore 1992 was a success, and included a great presentation by Laura Snyder about Sibley/Eastman being a case study in workflow, staffing, and stress in technical services. Words like “coping,” “workhorse,” “shock and denial,” and “minimal-level cataloging” were used!
Ralph Papakhian gives us an exhaustive history of the NACO-Music Project so far, and it alone in all of MOUG’s 14 years is worth a read! The NMP has developed the application process for becoming a participant. We’ve elected Sue Weiland as Secretary/Newsletter Editor, and Tim Cherubini as Continuing Education Coordinator, who will get us all planned for our next meeting, Feb. 2-3 in San Francisco.
“Best of MOUG” 4th edition is about to sell out. We’ll see if there will be a 5th! But, we are also reaching out to Library Literature and Music Index to see if maybe our Newsletter could be indexed in one of those products. Remember when we got real with an ISSN? We may get even real-er with indexing!
The top performer listed in OCLC is the London Symphony Orchestra. the PRISM service has been off and running already, but is gaining more and more functionality in authority records and has many planned enhancements for the future. First Search is also growing, and now linking to OCLC holdings data, which will be a boon for collection development when libraries can see if their benchmarks and cohorts subscribe to the same things!
To conclude This Year in MOUG 1992, we leave you with this:
“An organization like MOUG is really a collection of people–who commit some of their time, and contribute some of their energy toward achieving a common goal.”
[January 5, 2018]
1993
Giving you this history for free as we celebrate MOUG reaching fort-eeeeee! It’s time for 199-three! #MOUGat40
We made it through yet another glowing success in meetings, as we met in San Francisco! We elected Ralph Papakhian as Vice-Chair/Chair/Past Chair (a newer structure to that position as of 1988, making it a 4 year term) and Christine Grandy as Treasurer. “Best of MOUG” 5th edition is upcoming as well!
Ruthann McTyre has been appointed to be Public Services Coordinator, too! And she really hit the ground running, looking at the music titles indexed in FirstSearch (44) and asking MOUG for input on which of the 1100 possible music titles should be included…the top 25 were agreed upon across most of the board. As it turns out, while we were responding to her query, 13 more of our top 25 were added!
Everyone can search by subject in OCLC with PRISM now, and our overseas colleagues in the Consortium of University Research Libraries (CURL!) load 2.5 million records. FirstSearch becomes an annual subscription. The first and second passes of the new Duplicate Detection and Resolution (DDR) has cleaned the data significantly with nearly 700,000 merged pairs of duplicates!
NMP is still at it, and is making a concerted effort to better the works lists of significant composers in the National Authority File (NAF), having started with Prokofiev, Schumann, and Beethoven. Bach was handled earlier outside of this concerted effort. The original version of the NMP Handbook is in the works. As LC says, it “…has found that the NMP participants are creating and changing name authorities at a very high level of accuracy.” Well, of course they are! Mark Scharff has moved to a job at Washington University in St. Louis, so WashU is now part of NMP bringing our member institution codes to 14 (as compared to the future, where there are 64 in 2017).
Maybe you want to know what a cristal is? Read more about it!
The next year will be doubly active for MOUG. Come back tomorrow to see why!
[January 6, 2018]
1994
“Down and over. Down once more. That’s the way to make a four!” And it’s also fitting for 1994 in MOUG time! MOUG @ 40 is coming, so let’s celebrate!
The bylaws were amended to disallow institutional members from voting, which means that the human beings who have used an institutional membership for the various MOUG benefits must become personal members instead. Last year, a discussion commenced, if you are interested to know what everyone had to say about it!
MOUG doubles up on meetings this year, meeting both in conjunction with MLA in March in Kansas City, MO, and jointly with OLAC (referred to as the Decennial) in October in Oak Park, IL. When this happens, MOUG considers altering the meeting length to ensure it is not a strain on membership. Both were well attended successes!
Judy Weidow is elected as Secretary/Newsletter Editor, and Laura Gayle Green is elected as Continuing Education Coordinator, both continuing long-established legacies now. The Newsletters give us a News Flash in the August issue that LC is going to put off Format Integration until next year. LC also tells us that they will start using OCLC themselves for cataloging! And kudos to Laura Gayle especially, who has been programming the joint meeting with OLAC while learning the ropes for the next MOUG meeting and planning this year’s MLA meeting as part of local arrangements. [This Social Media Coordinator knows from personal experience what it’s like to do all of those things separately, and can only imagine what it would have been like to do it all at once!]
The NMP begins its formal application process to accept new members. Unfortunately, Stanford withdrew from the project, so the number goes down to 13 institutional codes by the time of the October meeting, but is expected to reach nearly 20 once the 7 new institutions are trained up!
[January 7, 2018]
1995
“You know, MOUG has a reputation for being a very practical organization.” Hear hear, Chair Ralph Papakhian! It’s practically 1995 in MOUG@40 celebration time!
Karen Little is the new Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, and Christine Gordon Grandy has become Treasurer. We met in Atlanta in true MOUG fashion….rousing success! We’ve also made it official, we will meet with OLAC on a decennial basis!
Regarding the O in MOUG, PromptCat now exists, and PRISM is now accessible via Internet [referred to as a product itself with a capital “i”], but available an extra hour each day before it’s fully on Internet! Regarding the NMP in MOUG, the first official version of the Handbook of Examples for Use in Authority Records, prepared by Mickey Koth, is distributed by MOUG for only $5! And, get this…the NMP has surpassed TWENTY-TWO THOUSAND authority record contributions!!!
The Program for Cooperative Cataloging has created the Core Record for Music, which expects full authority control via NMP to “assure high quality additions to our national databases.” And Format Integration Phase 1 was implemented. The MOUG Public Services Coordinator, Ruthann McTyre, has formed a MOUG Reference Products Interest Group which will evaluate, review and promote OCLC reference products, and keep an eye on others to see how they compare. #MOUGat40
[January 8, 2018]
1996
Get your MOUG@40 kicks, in 1996!
Ralph Papakhian has become Past Chair and Karen Little has become Chair. However, Judy Weidow rotates off the Board as Secretary/Newsletter Editor, being succeeded by Lynn Gullickson. Laura Gayle Green is leaving the Continuing Education Coordinator spot in the capable hands of Neil Hughes. The first OCLC PRISM Review Task Force was appointed to review and evaluate PRISM with respect to music cataloging.
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, we may create and use Core-Level records in OCLC. And the PCC has begun, so look for the code “pcc” in MARC 042 fields! OCLC gets up to 34,000,000 records in January, too, with a book titled “Microsoft Windows: Getting Started” and reaches its 64,000,000 ILL request, for a journal titled “Sign Language Studies.” FirstSearch is available on the web using “popular Web browsers, such as Netscape Navigator.” [#ThrowbackTuesday] And wouldn’t you know it, Cassalini Libri is going to start adding records, too. BUT, you could take part in a program to subsidize replacing your M575+ OCLC workstation with a new Pentium-based model!
The Board meets in Bloomington, Indiana, the home of Indiana University and several MOUG VIPs. Speaking of MOUG VIPs, Ralph Papakhian has created the first iteration of MOUG’s very own web page! [of course, it is too old to live in the Wayback Machine, but it’s better to check out the current website anyway!] #MOUGat40
[January 9, 2018]
1997
1997 was a year in heaven for MOUG! Here’s why:
Stephen Wright has been elected Vice Chair/Chair-Elect and Jane Penner is Treasurer. Unfortunately, a new Vice Chair/Chair-Elect means that Ralph Papakhian has finished his 4-year Chair cycle. However, as the World Wide Web site creator and maintainer, he has created a Web Site Committee to help with its development, content, and maintenance.
OCLC has partnered with the Academic Book Center and Yankee Book Peddler (YBP) to begin the first shelf-ready process, in conjunction with one of their contract cataloging operations, PromptCat. They have also created a label program which allows us to make labels from text files!
NACO has contributed over 25,000 new records since its inception, and will expand this year. LC has created the Music Cataloging Advisory Group (MCAG) to identify projects and develop cataloging policies and standards. The Music Division has also collected significant Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Victor Herbert, Richard Rogers, and Igor Stravinsky materials.
The “Best of MOUG,” 6th Edition is printed. The price is now $15. Our balance is now over $27,000, which will mean some nice things next year! And, of course, the annual meeting in New Orleans was…you guessed it…heavenly!
[January 10, 2018]
1998
“Indeed it was in Beantown in February of 1978 that MOUG was born, so we shall all truly be returning to our roots.” –Neil Hughes, MOUG Newsletter, no. 67 (1997). Thusly, we celebrate MOUG@40 by celebrating MOUG@20!
Martha Yee, of the UCLA Film and Television Archive started off MOUG@20 with a plenary titled “Musical Works on OCLC, or, What If OCLC Were Actually To Become a Catalog?” And Shelia Intner of Simmons College followed with a plenary titled “The Best of Times, the Worst of Times: Celebrating the Past and Toasting the Future.” (Go ahead a read the summaries, it will be worth your time.)
Chair, H. Stephen Wright, waxes poetic on AltaVista vs. the Magic 8 Ball and whether machines think or not. It is an epic thought along the same lines as Ralph Papakhian’s Catalogers Envy thoughts in 1995. Michelle Koth is elected Secretary/Newsletter Editor, and Cheryl Taranto is elected Continuing Education Coordinator.
On the 11th time OCLC’s Duplicate Detection and Resolution (DDR), reached 1,098,531 book duplicates fixed. Just as OCLC grows as it takes in extraneous records, it shrinks as it cleans itself up. Making it more complete but less over-exhaustive!
Let us bask in reaching the halfway point in #MOUGat40. We deserve it.
[January 11, 2018]
1999
MOUG is looking fine in 1999, so the #MOUGat40 celebration continues!
If you know H. Stephen Wright, then you know he’s hilarious! (If you don’t, just read what he writes.) He has started us off in 1999 by screenwriting an episode of The X-Files entirely centered in a music library. #EpicMOUGChairWritings #NewHashtag #RetrospectiveHashtAgadditionsInProgress
As MOUG gets ready for Y2K, Jean Harden is elected Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, and Debbie Herman-Morgan is elected Treasurer. Joint meetings with OLAC continues to come up. The number of institutional members continues to outrank the number of personal members. The membership considers a MOUG award of some kind. Online Audiovisual Catalogers (OLAC) has an award, which they have just renamed to the Nancy B. Olson Award.
If you’ve ever wondered how the Library of Congress is structured organizationally, check out the issue. Eye opening! They have also acquired the cataloging data from NPR…but too bad for you, they can’t distribute it with their records!
If you’ve ever wondered about any aspect of “quantitative goals” for cataloging, check out the August issue, where in more #EpicMOUGChairWritings, H. Stephen Wright lays it all out. Of course, as you would expect, the Los Angeles meeting was fantastic as usual with good attendance and informative sessions and workshops.
OCLC revises the plan for implementing a new FirstSearch, deciding not to just switch it on and the old one off at once. Instead, it will maintain both old and new for several months while it is implemented in stages and everyone gets used to it.
Wendy Sistrunk, with the help of Garth Tardy, examines the quality of LP cataloging in OCLC, writing a full report. Jean Harden writes an article explaining how music cataloging is different from book cataloging (in many ways, really). The MOUG crystal ball says that Jean will continue writing about how to catalog things under rules of the future….oooOOooooo…. Cheryl Taranto also writes an article about providing bibliographic instruction using OCLC FirstSearch.
[January 12, 2018]
2000
MOUG survived Y2K, so we continue celebrating #MOUGat40!
As H. Stephen Wright moves to Past Chair, Jean Harden moves to Chair. Margaret Kaus becomes Continuing Education Coordinator, and Michelle “Mickey” Koth has been reelected as Secretary/Newsletter Editor. And, Rebecca Littman was appointed as Webmaster (though she also liked the potential of WebGoddess instead!)
The September issue has more #EpicMOUGChairWritings from Harden, as she comprehensively outlines the process of cataloging a remotely arranged piece and how its remoteness makes it tough for students to learn “about” music from it.
This Sound Recordings Cataloger/Social Media Coordinator is feeling boastful, so she will tell you that, when we came into the new millennia, sound recordings were the 2nd largest residents of OCLC at 1,402,314 (3.41%), only behind books. Scores chimed in with 967,469, or 2.35%. Music is making a huge difference in the collaborative database, and is certainly earning its clout! In fact, OCLC is getting big enough that it is expanding the length of its symbols to 5 characters instead of 3.
However, our Reference Services Committee was DENIED its request for all subfields in MARC 245 field be displayed together in FirstSearch….afterall, the subfield “c” being moved to the bottom of a record is ok because patrons (specialness of sound recordings be darned).
MOUG meets with OLAC in Seattle this year, AND NOT in conjunction with MLA in Louisville. As you would imagine, it was a rousing success!
[January 13, 2018]
2001
2001 was a lot of fun. Let’s relive it through #MOUGat40!
We met in conjunction with MLA in New York City, fairly shortly after we met with OLAC in Seattle. That’s quite a jump, from coast to coast! We elected Ruthann McTyre as Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, and Ruth A. Inman as Treasurer. Past Chair, H. Stephen Wright, has worked on compiling an historical list of our Executive Board.
While we celebrate MOUG@40, we now also celebrate OCLC@30! WorldCat and online services in cataloging, reference, and resource sharing will start to be moved to Oracle(r). The OCLC Users Council has ratified changes to the Articles of Incorporation and Code of Regulations, and changed its own name to Members Council, adding several new delegates from outside the US. And, OCLC President/CEO Jay Jordan establishes the Corporate Inclusion Initiative to “broaden the cultural perspective” of OCLC. (OCLC got an additional Jay a couple of years ago….#SoManyJays #ButOursIsTheBest)
Requested improvements have been made to RILM Music Abstracts in FirstSearch, thanks to users of the database. 
Jay Weitz’ Questions & Answers column is still a continuous wealth of instructional information…maybe someday he will write us a book about it! But seriously, if you ever want to learn about how to code, subfield, or describe anything according to the rules of the time, this is the place to go!
[January 14, 2018]
2002
Woo hoo! 2002! MOUG@40 is getting closer!
MOUG created that award it wanted to and called it the MOUG Distinguished Service Award. The very first recipient was announced this year, and that recipient was Kay Burnett! LC also created an award for PCC funnel coordinators, and Ralph Papakhian was honored as the first recipient of that!
Our latest changes to the MOUG Board include Jean Harden moving up to Past Chair, Ruthann McTyre moving up to Chair, Marty Jenkins joining in as Continuing Education Coordinator, and Steve Luttmann taking on the responsibility of Secretary/Newsletter Editor.
OCLC introduces a new cataloging service, which is based on several of the existing tools, such as CORC, CatExpress, CatME, and Passport. And so, we hear for the first time, the name CONNEXION. It is web browser-based, but word on the street is that there will be a Microsoft Windows-based version in the future! OCLC also offers a service called MARS, which will make some updates to your records and send you reports of what authority changes have been made. You can send your records off to MARS!
A big name in audiovisual processing makes an appearance: MAVIS. She is the Merged Audio-Visual Information System at LC. She will be the first step in inventorying and cataloging AV collections. Accessioning, preserving, and cataloging unpublished, archival AV will start with MAVIS!
MOUG 2002 was held in Las Vegas in conjunction with MLA. Then Vice Chair/Chair-Elect Ruthann told us at the business meeting that we have our own souvenir shop, complete with mugs and mouse pads with our logo!
History is about to be made, as Jay Weitz has considered, at H. Stephen Wright’s suggestion, to publish his Q&A, and he is taking suggestions for a title. So far “The Jay Files” and “The Second Best of MOUG” have not made the cut. He also is contracted to publish two more volumes following Music Coding and Tagging.
Chair McTyre finishes one of her columns asking these questions: What do you take away from the MOUG meeting each year? What do you learn? What inspiration do you take away? Think on it, maybe on the plane to Portland to celebrate #MOUGat40.
[January 15, 2018]
2003
See me tell you about 2003, as we celebrate #MOUGat40!
Unfortunately, 2003 comes with some sadness with the passing of Leslie Troutman, a revered member of the profession. Please see the link below to read the obituary written by our own Richard Griscom. Anyone who attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign between 1987 and 2003 would tell you she was the epitome of user services, and her laughter was extraordinary.
In more uplifting news, Judy Weidow from the University of Texas at Austin, has been granted the 2nd MOUG Distinguished Service Award. And, maybe you have done the math to know that this year is the 25th Anniversary of MOUG. So, to celebrate MOUG@40, we celebrate MOUG@25 in turn, with speeches from that Distinguished Service Award recipient, Judy Weidow, and H. Stephen Wright (also reprinted in the issue linked below).
In fact, Judy gave this Social Media Coordinator a run for her money in MOUG history review! And, as usual, Steve was coy and full of humor in his recollection. In our 25th year, we also elected Mark Scharff as Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, and reelected Ruth A. Inman as treasurer. And, in the true spirit of giving, MOUG has reached the consensus to donate $1000 every year to MLA to thank that organization for allowing us to benefit from the services o the MLA Convention Manager for the past 25 years when we met in conjunction.
Chair Ruthann McTyre, signing off in her last column as Chair, made a quip about “hanging chads” [sending this Social Media Coordinator into fits of laughter]. Then closed reminding us to look forward to Mark Scharff’s Ole and Lena jokes–“You betcha!!” #EpicMOUGChairWritings
OCLC does it: releases the much anticipated Connexion Client! They also come up with a way to FRBR-ize a catalog, using The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes as an example. Plus, they pilot WorldCat as an interface open to people outside of library websites!
HIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR: The title of Jay Weitz’ Q&A book was chosen: Cataloger’s Judgment! Published just in the nick-of-time for this post.
[January 16, 2018]
2004
MOUG@40 is getting closer! Here we are at 2004!
Mark Scharff is now the Chair as Ruthann McTyre moves to Past Chair. Steve Luttmann was reelected as Secretary/Newsletter Editor, and Candice Feldt will join the board as Continuing Education Coordinator. Robert Acker is the new Reference Services Committee Chair, and Nancy Lorimer is now the Chair of the NACO Music Project Advisory Committee. Margaret Kaus was appointed as the next Best of MOUG Editor as well. On top of new leadership in various areas of the organization, a new committee was formed: Finance Committee.
MOUG met this year in Arlington (i.e. Washington D.C.), Virginia in conjunction with MLA where we recognized the OCLC Liaison, Jay Weitz, as the deserving recipient of the 3rd MOUG Distinguished Service Award. Our old friend, Glenn Patton, has also received a distinguished award: the OCLC President’s Award.
In other OCLC news, RILM, available through FirstSearch, has been enhanced with links to JSTOR and ECO, as well as links to full-text in other FirstSearch databases where available. OCLC is also preparing for the upcoming 13-digit ISBN. In LC news, “Arrearages for [Special Materials Cataloging Division] SMCD are defined as sound recordings” is a brilliantly quotable statement. Also, the Librarian of Congress has requested permission to “collect and preserve digital materials by capturing or ‘harvesting’ them directly from the Internet before they become unobtainable.” Sounds pretty futuristic!
Do you know what also sounds futuristic in 2004? #MOUGat40
[January 17, 2018]
2005
2005 took us out of the U.S. So we took a look at 2005 for MOUG@40!
MOUG met in conjunction with MLA in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Chair, Mark Scharff, noted that it included one of the “liveliest and provocative ‘Ask MOUG’ sessions” he’s seen. He also imparted the MOUG Distinguished Service Award to the dynamic duo themselves, Ralph & Sue (A. Ralph Papakhian and Sue Stancu). He also attended the OCLC Members’ Council meeting where he overheard the speaker muse that “…gizmos change every year and really, really, really fast!”
Speaking of dynamic duos, Stephen Luttmann and Sue Stancu taught reference and cataloging librarians, respectively, how to understand MARC bibliographic records while we were in Vancouver. We also have started to discuss the possible application of the Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records (FRBR; pronounced like “fur-burr”). And OCLC considers FRBR a “compelling reason” to join the collective! We have also elected Neil Hughes as Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, and Holling Smith-Borne as Treasurer. This also means Ruthann McTyre has rotated out of the position of Past Chair. Chair Scharff also admonished us to follow directions when we submit our ballots: pay your dues, and do as your told! “Please vote. Please, please, please.”
Unfortunately, we must also try to comprehend the passing of Lenore Coral: “Lenore’s work with LC, vendors, and standards organizations to improve retrieval, and perhaps most famously, her campaign for the ISMN, affects or work every day. Our public-services members can be thankful for her yeoman efforts on behalf of the U.S. RILM office to build that database.” Also unfortunate is the passing of Ernie the Wonder Dog, an honorary member of the MOUG Board and the beloved member of Jay Weitz’ and Esther Silverman’s family. Scharff is awaiting the applications of Phoebe and Zoe, who have now joined the family. #EpicMOUGChairWritings
MOUG is also considering taking a step in furthering our credibility as a not-for-profit organization by pursuing charitable organization status under section 501(c)3 in the federal tax code. That would make your contributions to our income tax-deductible! And speaking of epic, WorldCat reached 1 BILLION at 2:21 pm. EDT on Thursday, August 11. And wouldn’t you know it, the billionth item to make its way into WorldCat was………………..
A BOOK ABOUT MUSIC!
The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story of the ’60s TV Pop Sensation was added in OCLC’s founding state, Ohio. This is a noticeable milestone, too, as it adds a digit to the accession-based identifying record number. #MOUGat40
[January 18, 2018]
2006
Kicks were good ten years ago, but kicks are even better in 2006! #MOUGat40
Mark Scharff has become Past Chair, which means that Neil Hughes is now Chair! Kerri A. Scannell has taken over the post of Secretary/Newsletter Editor, and Bruce Evans has brought his iconic laughter to Continuing Education (Coordinator). Nancy Sack has been appointed as the new Web Keeper, as well! The plea continues, though, to get out the vote! As Hughes says, “Your vote does mean something to the colleague for whom you cast it, to the person seated next to you at an informative meeting session, and ultimately, to you, who want added value from your membership…Want me to write about something else, or just be quiet? Then please, VOTE!” #EpicMOUGChairWritings
MOUG met in conjunction with MLA again, focusing its programming on sound recordings from all angles. While we were there, we gave the 5th MOUG Distinguished Services Award to Jean Harden!
In other news, the Research Libraries Group, the owners and creators of RLIN, have been approved to combine with OCLC. OCLC has also made use of the MARC Format for Holdings Data as it has moved the Union Catalog into Connexion. LC has decided to no longer create and trace series authority records.
We unfortunately have to say goodbye to Deb Bendig, who has served as an OCLC representative to MOUG focused on the needs of public services members. Bendig is leaving OCLC to pursue a new position. Chair Neil Hughes writes a touching thank you to her: “…MOUG has gone to some lengths to expand outreach to our public service colleagues and to create an atmosphere at our annual meetings where communication among catalogers, public service librarians, and library managers/administrators takes place in such a way that everyone’s knowledge of OCLC products and services is enhanced to the greater good of each of your respective institution’s patrons. Your presence at our meetings has enhanced that atmosphere of communication immeasurable…you have become almost as much a figurehead at MOUG meetings as your colleague, Jay Weitz…and believe me, I can offer no higher praise than that.”
[January 19, 2018]
2007
2007 in MOUG history. MOUG@40. Let’s take a look.
Chair, Neil Hughes, thanks Mark Scharff for his outstanding work as he has completed his term as Past Chair, and Holling Smith-Borne as he has completed his term as Treasurer. Then, welcomes the new Treasurer, Deborah Morris, and new Vice Chair/Chair-Elect Tracey Rudnick. While we meet in Pittsburgh, Chuck Herrold receives the MOUG Distinguished Service Award.
This year, the Board appoints a new task force looking at our mission and objectives, another one looking at our bylaws in relation to our finances, and a third one to explore 501(c)(3) status. The work of Parliamentarian has also been assigned to the Secretary/Newsletter Editor, Kerri Scannell. Web Keeper, Nancy Sack, also puts together a task force to look at a website redesign after our recent move to a different web-hosting service (BlueHost).
OCLC is piloting something called WorldCat Local, which may be able to replace our other OPACs. and MOUG becomes incorporated in OCLC’s home state! We can no go for charitable status federally!
As Neil Hughes writes his final column as Chair, he reminds is why MOUG is so important: “Here I found some of my first mentors, and my earliest encouragements to get involved and make my voice heard. So I hope that if you are a new music librarian, or a new paraprofessional in a music library, that someone in MOUG has taken the time to show the same kind of interest in you and your career.” #EpicMOUGChairWritings #MOUGat40
[January 20, 2018]
2008
2008! What else ends in the number 8? 2018! MOUG@40! #MOUGat40!
Tracey Rudnick has moved into the position of Chair, while Neil Hughes moves to Past Chair. We’ve also elected Alan Ringwood as Secretary/Newsletter Editor. There is no new Treasurer this year, because the bylaws change to extend the term of the treasurer passed! Margaret Kaus has put together the EIGHTH EDITION of The Best of MOUG. So much 8!
OCLC is prototyping a map that collects all of the information about all of its member libraries. It’s called WorldMap. It is also starting to offer long-term digital collections storage.
There is also an important announcement: Announcing MOUG-L, the New MOUG Listserv (well, newly hosted by the University of Kentucky). My, how the times, they are a changin’. We can say something to everyone at once, even when we aren’t in a meeting! But it seems to be doing well after moving from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. When you read the September Newsletter, you see the rules of Listserv etiquette.
LC is planning on doing retrospective conversion on their 7 music card catalogs (that’s 3.5 million cards!) and they just started making LCSH authority records for genre/form late last year.
Our Newport, RI meeting, in conjunction with MLA, started with a plenary by Glenn Patton and Paul Cauthen discussing vendor records for music in WorldCat, like those of Harrassowitz, Cassalini, and now Baker & Taylor. We also meet jointly with OLAC this year in Cleveland, OH, the home of rock ‘n roll.
When the MOUG Newsletter reaches 100, it gets a makeover. And what do you know, but MOUGNewsletter@100 coincides with MOUG@30 AND NACOMusicProject@20! This is certainly a year to celebrate! Check out the Newsletter Retrospective.
[January 21, 2018]
2009
In 10 days, we start our in-person celebration of MOUG@40. That means we have reached 2009 in our history!
We say goodbye but thank you to Neil Hughes as he has completed his tenure as Past Chair, and to Deborah Morris who is leaving the post of Treasurer. We have then elected Diane Napert as the next Treasurer, and Steve Luttmann as the Vice Chair/Chair-Elect!
In another meeting in conjunction with MLA, this time in Chicago, Michelle “Mickey” Koth has been give the MOUG Distinguished Service Award. Her website, Music Cataloging At Yale has proven to be a valuable, day-to-day resource for music catalogers everywhere. In a discussion at the meeting, our members shared their thoughts on the future of face-to-face meetings for MOUG. It’s been on the table for decades now…what will the future bring?
OCLC begins letting us make more changes to bibliographic records in WorldCat, called the Expert Community Experiment. They have also bee hard at work in their research, publishing “Online Catalogs: What Users and Librarians Want.” However, due to changing economic and information climates, it is “focusing more on ways to maximize resources and less on things that are ‘nice to have.'” DDR (Duplicate Detection and Resolution) has also come back, with brand new software to back it up!
In other news, MOUG tests out electronic voting for the first time and it seems to have gone well. There is also this thing everyone keeps talking about…they are calling it RDA, which stands for Resource Description and Access. It’s supposed to replace AACR2. What will we have for #MOUGat40?
[January 22, 2018]
2010
2010 is a very difficult year for which to write an historical reminiscence. Our incredible friend and mentor, who was there at the beginning of MOUG and the NACO-Music Project (NMP), has passed to the next life: Arsen Ralph Papakhian (1948-2010).
I must take a brief pause in this MOUG history to tell you that I, Michelle Hahn, the Social Media Coordinator for MOUG and author of this daily historical perspective, was a student under Ralph at Indiana University several years before his passing. He allowed me to work for him during part of my time there, and is the definitive reason I got my first Librarian job. We all love Ralph with all of our hearts, and he has been a stalwart member of the profession for all these years…and likely into eternity. In continuing with this post, the spirit of Ralph will be omnipresent.
We all miss you, Ralph.
Coming into the position of Chair, Stephen Luttmann quickly makes note that, yes, RDA will eventually come in some form, but “the last time [he] looked in [his] OPAC, the world hadn’t yet been FRBRized.” He did note that, “one thing that quickly became apparent in San Diego, however, is that there is no shortage of people at OCLC who, at least once they are apprised of problems…care about them a lot.” #EpicMOUGChairWritings
Yes, the meeting this year was in San Diego, quite literally on the beach. Rebecca Belford has been appointed as the new Reference Services Chair, Damien Iseminger has been elected Secretary/Newsletter Editor, and Catherine Gick Busselen has been elected Continuing Education Coordinator. Ralph’s passing also left the position of NMP Coordinator vacant, but the position was refilled by the most worthy Mark Scharff.
The tech world is moving rapidly forward, as evidenced by a new iPhone app (and the iPhone itself) which allows you to scan a barcode on a book and see if it’s in a library near you, thanks to WorldCat. The critical article database, JSTOR, is also now indexed in WorldCat. And so are Google Books and the HathiTrust Digital Library! MOUG is also considering offering short workshops “virtually,” through something called Second Life. One of our biggest vendors, Theodore Front Musical Literature, Inc., has started contributing “bibliographic” records to WorldCat, too. A new partnership with All Music Guide and Rovi have also “beefed up” over 250,000 records for music.
The June issue, the first published after Ralph’s passing, includes a reprinting of the obituary from his local newspaper, as well as several tributes to him by his colleagues and friends. If you choose to click on this link to read them, be forewarned: you should have a box of tissues in reach. In tribute, MOUG has established a travel grant in honor of Ralph to “support attendance at the annual MOUG meeting an, in recognition of Ralph’s mentoring role in music librarianship, is especially intended to support newer members of the profession in both public and technical services.”
Mark McKnight, at the University of North Texas, solicited the MOUG Board’s input as he wrote the definitive article about MOUG in The Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd ed. #MOUGat40
[January 23, 2018]
2011
We move on now to 2011 in MOUG years to celebrate MOUG@40.
This year, we met in conjunction with MLA in Philadelphia. Martin Jenkins was elected Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, and Casey Mullin as Treasurer-Elect. Tracey Snyder was appointed as the new Web Keeper as well. Alice LaSota was given the MOUG Distinguished Service Award! The first A. Ralph Papakhian Travel Grant was awarded to not one, but three attendees: Sally Bauer, Sandra Schipior, and Timothy Smolko. Many thanks to Laura Gayle Green and Elizabeth Johnson for making it possible for 2 more attendees to be recipients of the first grants.
The Library of Congress premiere’s the Performing Arts Encyclopedia providing access to sheet music complete with metadata. Their “Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation (PC)” [now known as the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC)] is continuing its “multi-year operational ramp-up” as well.
At our meeting, Richard Smiralgia told us about replicating a study done by him and Ralph Papakhian in 1981 called “Music in the OCLC Online Union Catalog: A Review,” this time studying WorldCat in 2010. OCLC has worked with the PCC to expand NACO participants’ capabilities in editing BIBCO records. WorldCat Local is also now “mobile-optimized” (in a testing version, called “beta”). #MOUGat40
[January 24, 2018]
2012
2012. The year we meet in Dallas, TX! Not long until MOUG@40!
While meeting in conjunction with MLA in Dallas this year, we elected Mary Huismann as Secretary/Newsletter Editor, and Mac Nelson as Continuing Education Coordinator. And our 2nd ever Ralph Papakhian Travel Grant was awarded to Sonia Archer-Capuzzo. The NACO-Music Project Coordinator has been added to the MLA Bibliographic Control Committee as a non-voting member.
“…change…is in the air in the library world…Resource Description and Access (RDA) is finally a real tool…”#EpicMOUGChairWritings from Marty Jenkins! While in Dallas, we also hear from Rebecca Belford, MOUG’s own Reference and Collection Services Coordinator, about the enhancements made by and recommended to OCLC for WorldCat Local.
We’ve been approached by EBSCO to allow inclusion of our Newsletters in Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts. We should see them appear there next year! And, Casey Mullin, Treasurer, has gotten us into the PayPal system so that we can renew our membership or join up online! MOUG is really getting involved in technology things! #MOUGat40
[January 25, 2018]
2013
2013 was a major fundraising year! As we celebrate #MOUGat40, we’ll tell you why!
Chair Mary Jenkins thanks us for it: “The generosity of the members of MOUG never ceases to amaze me. As many of you will recall, at our Business Meeting in San Jose, outgoing Board member Steve Luttmann challenged us to raise $5,000 over the next two months to support the Ralph Papakhian Travel Award, and offered to match those donations with $5,000 of his own. Well, you certainly rose to the challenge! In less than one month the target was reached and surpassed…” #EpicMOUGChairWritings and #EpicMOUGMemberGenerosity!
Thanks to that generosity, 5 Ralph Papakhian Travel Grants were awarded to Claire Marsh, Christina Linklater, Jacey Kepich, Karla Jurgemeyer, and Kristen Heider. And also speaking of generosity, Matt Montgomery has received the Distinguished Service Award for his generous contributions to the M-O-U of this group.
During the meeting, held in conjunction with MLA, we heard a lightning round about the new RDA. Nara Newcomer will now serve as Treasurer-Elect/Treasurer, and Bruce Evans as Vice Chair/Chair-Elect. Past Chair Steve Luttmann leaves the Board after being a Board member for the last 8 of 11 years. His parting gift is that matching gift for the Ralph Papakhian Travel Grant. Also of note, MOUG has been granted 501(c)(3) tax exemption status.
If you’ve ever wondered what the Board sees when they hold their annual meetings in Columbus at OCLC Headquarters and Jay Weitz’ house, see the pictures in the Newsletter issue below!
[January 26, 2018]
2014
We’re coming into the home stretch now, with #MOUGat40 just four days away. Four days left brings us to 2014. In 2014 we had two meetings–our traditional just-before-MLA meeting in Atlanta, and a joint meeting with OLAC in October in Kansas City.
Some more board changes this year, Bruce Evans transitions into Chair. Casey Mullin (now, of course, Chair), rotates off the Board as the first ever Past Treasurer with Nara Newcomer becoming treasurer. Michelle Hahn* becomes our new Continuing Education Coordinator, taking the place of Mac Nelson. In other distinguished news, Paul Cauthen is awarded the Distinguished Service Award for decades of contributing excellent catalog records and the inimitable Joe Bartl retires from Library of Congress.
This year WorldCat Discovery Services are launched, a suite of cloud-based applications bringing together FirstSearch and WorldCat Local services. WDS will be a hot topic over the next few years with the music community working hard to make its voice heard and OCLC listening!
* This vignette and the remaining days leading up to MOUGat40 will be written by our dedicated web editor, Anna Alfeld LoPrete. Michelle is currently gearing up for or en route to Portland.
[Written by Anna LoPrete; January 27, 2018]
2015
The 2015 meeting in Denver was my first meeting, thanks to the Ralph Papakhian Travel Grant. Like Michelle, I am not only a current employee of Indiana University, but I did my library studies there as well. I was honored to work with Ralph, albeit briefly, when I started at IU. Speaking of Hoosier hegemony, Sue Stancu retired from IU after 35 years on December 31, 2014. Sue was an early member of MOUG, serving the profession in numerous capacities, and, with Ralph, was the joint recipient of the Distinguished Service Award in 2005. Later on in 2015 Michelle Hahn filled her mentor’s shoes as Sound Recording Catalog Librarian.
2015 was a hard year for many due to the passing of Grace Fitzgerald on January 7. Grace had recently retired from the University of Iowa Libraries where she had worked since 1986. In the June 2015 newsletter, Ruthann McTyre provided a very touching tribute to her friend and colleague.
The 2015 meeting was also the first meeting to offer an extended program schedule, a full day and a half of talks and presentations and an in-depth training on using LCMPT and LCGFT terms when cataloging. #MOUGat40
Our “new” website went live in 2015 featuring a member’s only section, more interactivity and more cataloging knowledge. If these daily snapshots have piqued your interest you can reread all the old newsletters there as well. Of special interest are two from this year (2015), June’s with Ruthann’s tribute to Grace Fitzgerald, and September’s with musings upon retirement from MOUG charter member, Joe Scott. Joe reminisces about the old way of copy cataloging—using a polaroid camera to take a picture from the old union catalog, then pasting them onto cards. To some, card catalogs seem nearly as ancient as scrolls and parchment but OCLC printed its last library catalog cards on October 1, 2015! At Indiana we still have our old shelflist and have students working with it as I type! I’m on record as wanting one or two of the cabinets if we ever get rid of it.
Image: Ellen Ogihara, MLS and Music Librarianship Specialization student at Indiana University works with the shelflist. Picture taken by Anna LoPrete.
[Written by Anna LoPrete; January 28, 2018]
2016
The 2016 meeting in Cincinnati saw record-breaking attendance and an expanded footprint. A couple changes to the Board: Jennifer Vaughn becomes the new newsletter editor and secretary. The position of Reference Collection Services Coordinator (filled by Rebecca Belford) becomes Reference Discovery and Collection Coordinator and is now a voting position. We also gain a new web editor: me [Anna Alfeld LoPrete]! Neil Hughes wins the Distinguished Services Award.
August 26, 2016 was the 45th anniversary of the launch of WorldCat. Where would any of us be without WorldCat? There are more than 380 million records in 491 languages and dialects. WorldCat truly changed the bibliographic world. Can any of us imagine our jobs without it? Seriously, can we? #MOUGat40
[Written by Anna LoPrete; January 29, 2018]
2017
For this special vignette on 2017, your indomitable Continuing Education Coordinator (which position began this year) is being eclipsed by your wily Web Editor who in August of 2017 traveled to Idaho to view the total solar eclipse. The drive from Salt Lake to Idaho took 4 hours driving there but 12 hours driving back with all the other eclipse viewers.
2017 means we’re upon #MOUGat40 which means we’re seeing each other in Portland to celebrate! Most of us probably traveled yeseterday, and I know nobody allowed the frenzy of airports to eclipse their excited perusal of 40 Days of MOUG. You are also probably thinking about the reception tonight at the Elysian Ballroom and being grateful for having to buy one less dinner.
In 2017 we gain a new Jay: Jay Holloway, also of OCLC, who joins us to discuss end user services along with Reference, Discovery Coordinator Nara Newcomer who also leads the newly formed RDCC Committee. The “new” board has some “old” faces starting with the new RDC Nara NEWcomer, fresh from her “old” gig of Treasurer etc., taking the place of (but not eclipsing!) Rebecca Belford. Bruce Evans steps aside as Past-Chair and Alan Ringwood rejoins us Vice Chair/Chair-Elect. Our new treasurer-elect, working with Tomoko Shibuya, is Jacob Schaub. Also new this year, the official position of Social Media Coordinator, none other than the fabulous Michelle Hahn, who successfully led the previous two MOUG meetings as Continuing Education Coordinator. As you all know, Michelle was severely injured the day after our meeting adjourned by a reckless driver but thankfully has made an incredible recovery and is totally back at work now. Yours’ truly’s favorite part of her day is hearing Michelle’s laugh from down the hallway.
Robert Cunningham, now of Boston Public Library, is back in the limelight, this time as 2017’s recipient of the Distinguished Service Award. Robert was also the first music specialist hired by OCLC in 1979 from where he was actively involved planning and organizing MOUG meetings.
Photo: Traffic jam returning from eclipse-viewing in Idaho.
[Written by Anna LoPrete; January 30, 2018]