PNWMLA Annual Meeting Schedule | Friday, May 7, 2021
Meeting link will be sent out by May 6, 2021. To receive a link, fill out the form on the Registration page.
9:30 – 9:45
Zoom Room Opens
9:45 – 9:55
Welcome & Meeting Announcements
10:00 – 10:30
Remote Student Library Work as an Introduction to the Profession | Ann Shaffer and Kathryn Edom (University of Oregon)
The temporary closure of UO’s music reference desk and related shift to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic created some significant changes to the workflow of the student employees of the UO Libraries Music Reference team. In this presentation, music librarian Ann Shaffer and music reference assistant Kathryn Edom will discuss how they used the opportunities provided by the remote work environment to customize Kathryn’s library work projects in order to give her some introductory experience in different aspects of music librarianship. This approach was prompted by Kathryn’s decision to pursue a career in music librarianship, and allowed us to incorporate aspects of reference outreach, collection development, and collection management that would not typically be part of the music reference assistant duties in non-pandemic times.
Ann Shaffer (she/her) is the Music and Dance Librarian at the University of Oregon, where she wears multiple hats as a music cataloger and subject liaison for music and dance, as well as manager of the Knight Library’s Music Reference Desk and the team of students who staff it. She holds masters degrees in musicology and in library science with music specialization from Indiana University, and a BA in music and medieval studies from Smith College. She currently serves as a steward and the UO Libraries Representative to United Academics, UO’s faculty labor union. Off of the Zoom screen, she can often be found playing cello or viola da gamba, performing Middle Eastern and North African dance, and chasing a toddler.
Kathryn Edom is an up-and-coming composer from Elk Grove, California. She studied percussion and composition at California State University, Sacramento and is currently pursuing a Master’s of Music in composition at the University of Oregon. She currently works as a Music Reference Assistant at the University of Oregon’s Knight Library and next year will start her Master’s in Library and Information Sciences at Indiana University in hopes of pursuing a career as a music librarian.
10:30 – 11:00
Library Labor Organizing During the Pandemic | Ann Shaffer and Kate Thornhill (University of Oregon)
In the spring of 2020, 211 career non-tenure track faculty at the University of Oregon faced the threat of significant reduction or elimination of their contracts, as the university anticipated a budget crisis stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. Among these faculty were 22 librarians, nearly half of the UO’s library faculty workforce, at a time when library support was critical to remote teaching and learning. As library reps and stewards for the UO’s faculty union, we launched a campaign to advocate for full contract renewals for all librarians, focused on three areas: highlighting librarians’ invisible labor, mobilizing stakeholders at our institution, and cultivating external support. We will discuss the strategies we employed while organizing in a remote work environment, how our efforts impacted the negotiations between the university and faculty union, and what we learned in the process.
Ann Shaffer (she/her) is the Music and Dance Librarian at the University of Oregon, where she wears multiple hats as a music cataloger and subject liaison for music and dance, as well as manager of the Knight Library’s Music Reference Desk and the team of students who staff it. She holds masters degrees in musicology and in library science with music specialization from Indiana University, and a BA in music and medieval studies from Smith College. She currently serves as a steward and the UO Libraries Representative to United Academics, UO’s faculty labor union. Off of the Zoom screen, she can often be found playing cello or viola da gamba, performing Middle Eastern and North African dance, and chasing a toddler.
Kate Thornhill (she/her/hers) has worked at the University of Oregon Libraries since 2018, and teaches digital libraries and digitization for the University of Denver’s Library and Information Science online masters degree program. She received her masters degree in library and information science from Simmons University in 2013. Throughout her career, she has been devoted to developing and sustaining digital services as a hybrid between a librarian, archivist, and web technologist. Her specializations are digital library services and research communications systems development, cultural heritage digital library community management, creating and maintaining digital humanities projects, and teaching digital competencies that enhance classroom and research experiences. Prior to UO Libraries Digital Scholarship Services, she worked at Oregon Health and Science University as the Interim Director of Curatorial Services and Repository Librarian and was a Research and Instruction Digital Scholarship Librarian at Lesley University’s College of Art and Design Library.
11:00 – 11:15
Break
Zoom will remain open for those who wish to socialize
11:15 – 12:00
Wikidata: What Is It and How Is University of Washington Using It to Promote Their Faculty and Student Work | Cate Gerhart, University of Washington
Cate will talk about a project that she’s been involved in for the past 6 months to add Wikidata items for the music faculty and graduate students at the University of Washington. You’ll learn what Wikidata is, what regulations restrict who is added to Wikidata, how new items are created, and how they will be used to daylight theses and dissertations by UW graduate students.
12:00 – 1:00
Lunch break
Zoom will remain open for those who wish to socialize
1:00 – 2:00
LANIAKEA (Immeasurable Heavens) for Stephen Hawking and Sun Ra | Heather Bentley
LANIAKEA (Immeasurable Heavens) for Stephen Hawking and Sun Ra is a meditation on space and the ways we use our imaginations to explore it. I find a parallel between the way Hawking visualized spatial models of astrophysics problems and my own peculiar way of imagining harmonies and intervallic relationships in my music, a system I developed after a long struggle with traditional music theory. Sun Ra’s always contended that he was from the planet Saturn, and his music didn’t sound anything like people assumed it should. I owe great gratitude to his unswerving staking of identity: Sun Ra inspires me to find the music that fits me, rather than a music I once assumed I should be writing. In this session, I’ll play some examples from the piece and describe the processes I used to create the music.
Seattle-based violist and composer Heather Bentley has trailblazed a career as one of the West Coast’s most visible improvisatory musicians, specializing in creating evocative atmospheres and textures. Classically trained, she has shifted to an unabashedly experimental artistic output: As a performer, she can be seen performing on instruments like her electric seven string and five string violins or her electronic pedal board in numerous chamber ensembles that utilize improvisation, electronics, and often both. As a composer, her work for chamber ensembles and orchestras has been performed by organizations across both California and Washington. Relentless in her pursuit of creativity, she continues this work as co-founder of Kin of the Moon, a 501(c)3 organization which fosters collaboration between artists in service of creating unique art.
2:00 – 3:00
Endangered Species: In Support of Concert Traditions | Adam Stern
Using the specious excuse of “changing times and changing audiences”, an increasing number of symphony orchestras are veering away from the time-honored tradition of presenting concerts as pure listening experiences. Conductor Adam Stern puts his two cents in in support of music unadorned by distractions, diversions, and gimmicks, and also discusses other ways in which classical music is being diluted in attempts to reach wider audiences.
Adam Stern has been leading the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra since 2003. During his tenure he has brought several Northwest and West Coast premieres to the Puget Sound community. Stern’s unique programming combines beloved masterworks with must-hear rarities; programs presented by the Seattle Philharmonic are not merely concerts, but true musical events. He also is the Music Director of the Sammamish Symphony and the newly-appointed Music Director of the Federal Way Symphony, as well as the Associate Conductor/“Pops” Conductor of the Oregon Coast Music Festival.
Stern was born in Hollywood in 1955. He began his musical studies at age five as a piano student, and began flute lessons two years later. At 15, Stern was accepted at California Institute of the Arts, where he initially majored in flute performance, but changed his major to conducting in his second year at the urging of the late Gerhard Samuel, a noted conductor and educator. Stern was graduated in 1977 with an MFA in conducting at 21, the youngest Master’s degree recipient in CalArts’ history.
He has since put that degree to good use, and has been a guest-conductor with the Milwaukee Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Boulder Philharmonic, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Symphonic Wind Ensemble at Michigan State University, the Sacramento Symphony, Chamber Music Northwest in Portland and the New York Chamber Symphony.
Locally, Stern served as Associate Conductor at the Seattle Symphony from 1996 to 2001 and as Assistant Conductor from 1992 to 1996, conducting in all of the Symphony’s major concert series. He led the Seattle Symphony premieres of Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 3 and Elgar’s Symphony No. 2. In addition to directing numerous classical concerts, Stern also made several ventures into the “pops” field, conducting for such artists as James Taylor, Judy Collins, Art Garfunkel, Doc Severinsen and Frank Sinatra Jr.
3:00 – 3:15
Break
Zoom will remain open for those who wish to socialize
3:15 – 4:30
Business Meeting