ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 352 / C &RL News B ach meets the Boogie Kings By L a u ra Dankner Music Librarian Loyola University, New Orleans Peaceful coexistence among disparate musical styles in an academic music library. T h i s paper originally opened with an eloquent plea justifying the place of Boogie in a world where Bach, not Elvis, is King. But who was it who said, “Don’t preach to the converted”? In place of a ser­ mon, imagine you are at a New Orleans bar called Tipitina’s, sipping a Dixie longneck and listening to “Big C h ie f’ by Professor Longhair on the jukebox. This is a prime example of the basic New Orleans piano sound that Longhair pioneered beginning in the 1940s and th at is part of Loyola’s Louisiana Music Collection, the largest segment of all our popular music holdings. The Music L ibrary is the only branch library at Loyola, which has an enrollment of 5 ,0 0 0 students. W e are small, with under 4 0 ,0 0 0 books, scores, re­ cordings, periodicals, and microforms, but we of­ fer a full array of academ ic library services to all members of the university community, although we are physically located within the College of Mu­ sic. But the 225 music majors and College of Music faculty are our heaviest users. The music portion of the library acquisitions budget, of which I am in charge, is used to buy curriculum -related m ateri­ als; and the curriculum at Loyola, with the excep­ tion of our strong jazz program , heavily empha­ sizes W estern art music. So you might say we have a garden variety a ca­ demic music library. And to be honest, I am a gar­ den variety academ ic music librarian, with roots firmly planted in classical music. So w hat’s a nice long-hair librarian-type like me doing in a world of Fats Domino, anyway? Certainly no child of the Sixties could have es­ caped being influenced by popular music. In fact, I know I am getting old when I grumpily tell stu­ dents that “our” music (like the Beatles, since I con­ veniently forget about the bad stuff) is better than “their” music. But when I first moved to New O r­ leans, I knew virtually nothing about Louisiana’s ric h m u sical h e rita g e . D ix ie la n d and L o u is A rm stro n g — th a t was ab o u t th e exten t of m y knowledge. However, I quickly discovered that the local m u­ sic scene was incredibly varied and culturally di­ verse. Since I am a child of the Sixties, it isn’t sur­ prising that New Orleans 1960s rhythm and blues was the first local music that really grabbed me. During the so-called Golden Age of New Orleans music, many songs, such as Jesse Hill’s “Ooh Poo Pah D o o ,” made the national R&B charts. Over the years I cam e to love them all— 1960s rhythm and blues, 1970s funk, swamp pop, rock­ abilly from the Texas border, contemporary free jazz, soul, gospel, punk, and an infinite variety of combinations. Cajun music and Cajun food have both becom e amazingly popular very recently. Most Cajun songs are sung in a French dialect, such as “Zydeco Gris Gris” (heard in the movie “The Big Easy”) by Beausoleil, an innovative Cajun band from Lafayette. If you are familiar with Louisiana music, per­ haps you can see (or hear) why I was converted. I thought this wonderful stuff belonged in my li­ brary. I also wanted to introduce our users to a June 1988 / 353 Louisiana musicians offer a w ide variety o f genres. L eft to right: Rufus Thibodeaux (C ajun), Clifton C h en ier (zydeco), Lloyd P rice (R&B). broader palette, so I actually had tw o goals in mind: 1) to include both Louisiana and more m ain­ stream popular music styles in a new popular rec­ ord collection; and 2) to place this music with all our other records, on the open shelves in the Music L ib rary, since in no w ay did I w ant this to be con­ sidered a special collection, in the upper-case, restricted-access meaning of the term . But I had no w ay to justify spending a lot of money on popular music. My modest budget sim­ ply wasn’t earmarked for the likes of Bruce Spring­ steen or Beausoleil. It was intended to buy m ateri­ als supporting the music curriculum , and very few classes even acknowledged the existence of popular music. W as this going to be a realistic project? First I m ade sure there really was a need for us to collect popular music. The answer, after an infor­ mal survey of several local academ ic and public li­ braries, was an em phatic yes. In fact, Louisiana music, with the exception of traditional Dixieland jazz, was surprisingly under-represented in nearly all the institutions I surveyed. I decided that I would use a modest sum from my regular music budget to purchase the mainstream , nationally known pop music genres, and to look elsewhere for funding the Louisiana portion of the project. This was based on m y feeling th a t, al­ though it’s one thing to rationalize the place of Bob Dylan in an academ ic music library, it is much harder to defend the literary or sociological value of “Ooh Poo Pah D o o .” I did not feel that it was either politically or ethically supportable to use regular funding sources on m usic, how ever de­ lightful, that was unrelated to any course offerings at Loyola. Separate funding seemed the best solu­ tion. W hile the first recordings of non-local music were bought with money from the Music Library allocation, in succeeding years an additional fund­ ing source was discovered. At Loyola the library acquisitions budget, although officially one lump sum, is divided into several budget lines. The line dedicated to music library acquisitions had to be used to support purchases related to the College of Music, but there was another funding source that might be tapped as well. This was the allocation set aside for City College, as the university’s evening division is known. On the faculty of City College is an in stru cto r w ho teaches m usic ap p reciatio n courses to evening students. Popular music is an im p o rta n t co m p o n en t of these classes, and it seemed logical to discuss our project with both this instructor and the collections development librar­ ian, who has jurisdiction over most budget lines with a few exceptions such as the Music L ibrary funds. Both seemed enthusiastic about my proposal and agreed that it was appropriate to set aside a small portion of the City College budget line for popular music purchases to be housed in the Music Library. This ag reem en t rem ained in effect for several years, significantly increasing our holdings of re­ cordings, scores (especially “fake books,” antholo­ gies of popular songs), and books. F o r the non-local purchases I found th at the availability of m any excellent retrospective anthol­ ogies m ade it possible to acquire a reasonably good overview of m any different styles for a surprisingly small amount of money. Multi-volume sets issued T h e Neville Brothers, live at Tipitina’s; and Cajun musicians, live at M u la te’s. 354 / C&RL News by Motown, Atlantic, the Smithsonian, Time-Life, and others became the backbone of our popular music holdings. U nfortunately our budget re ­ straints made it impractical to go much beyond the anthology approach, but at least we had a basic, though limited, collection of the major styles and artists. As I mentioned earlier, I had determined that funding for the Louisiana portion of the new col­ lection had to be found outside our normal chan­ nels. At first I simply assumed that I would have to apply for grant support, perhaps from a local or re­ gional foundation or arts agency. But before em­ barking on the always time-consuming and often disappointing grantsmanship route, I thought that it wouldn’t hurt to see what my colleague in the Main Library, the collections development librar­ ian, had to suggest. To my delight, he offered to let us have a special allocation from the library’s gen­ eral fund that would be earmarked for the pur­ chase of Louisiana popular music recordings. This special award enabled us to purchase the first and largest group of Louisiana recordings immedi­ ately. I will always be grateful to both the collec­ tions librarian and the university librarian (who ul­ timately must approve all acquisitions spending requests) for their support and encouragement. W ith funding for the first round of Louisiana re­ cordings in hand, I decided that our first priority would be New Orleans rhythm and blues: Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew, and Allen Toussaint were among those writers and performers who cam e into prominence from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s. The later 1960s and 1970s, heyday of Dr. John the Nighttripper and The Meters (a funk band), would also be emphasized. Finally we a t­ tempted to collect all current, original albums of Louisiana performers throughout the state, re­ gardless of style. The ever-practical retrospective anthology approach I had used earlier proved to be a budget-stretcher during this second phase of the project as well— especially practical for purchas­ ing a good sampling of those New Orleans rhythm and blues performances. Perhaps the most popular New Orleans group in the 1980s is the Neville Brothers, whose individual careers span three decades of New Orleans music. Their distinctive funk-influenced rhythm is well represented in anthologies. More recently I have been concentrating more on contemporary styles and artists, especially Cajun and Zydeco selections, and expanding our scope to books, periodicals, and video. To keep our users aware of the collection, I have often written about it in the Music Library’s news­ letter. A great opportunity for additional publicity occurs each spring when we prepare our annual Jazz Fest discography and bibliography. It is issued in conjunction with the Louisiana Jazz and Heri­ tage Festival, which features both national and lo­ cal performers from Fats Domino and Miles Davis to Los Lobos. W e also mount a small Jazz Fest ex­ hibit, featuring articles from our books and m aga­ zines, photos of performers, and album covers. I have also prepared a guide to various sources of information on Louisiana music and musicians. Although originally intended for the use of Loyola students, it was later published in a regional news­ letter of the Music Library Association. I decided this year to expand the scope of this annotated bib­ liography, so that a fuller range of materials, even some not available at Loyola, could be included. A National Endowment for the Humanities Travel to Collections grant enabled me to visit the music li­ brary and sound recording archive at Bowling Green State University where I found many addi­ tional citations. The recordings of local and national music have proven popular among our users, for both teaching and leisure-listening purposes. In fact, we have had to limit our compact disk circulation policies largely due to the popularity of the Beatles on CD , which patrons complained were always checked out. Immensely popular during the Mardi Gras season is our Carnival music, rarely played any­ where else except in Louisiana for a few weeks in February or March. Our contemporary Louisiana jazz recordings are used a lot, especially those fea­ tu rin g the various m em bers of the G ram m y - grabbing Marsalis clan. I also answer a number of reference questions, especially about Louisiana music, from both inside and outside the university; and our non-reference books about popular music circulate frequently, both at Loyola and through interlibrary loan. Our upswing in circulation statistics, due in some part to the popular music collection, is per­ suasive at budget allocation time. The library ad­ ministration is also impressed that the collection is slowly becoming known outside the university, be­ cause community outreach is actively encouraged at Loyola. One of the most satisfying benefits has been the positive response from people who aren’t our usual patrons. They include students, faculty and staff who are not affiliated with the College of Music as well as people from outside the university. Once they have discovered that we have this kind of mu­ sic their visits are more frequent and they some­ times discover our much larger holdings of classical music in the process. The reverse is also true for music majors studying W estern art music who come to appreciate popular music for the first time. When such interaction takes place, it really does become a case of Bach meets the Boogie Kings, rather than Bach versus the Boogie Kings! In case you were wondering, the Boogie Kings are indeed a Louisiana group, although I must ad­ mit I chose their name because it goes well with Bach. In yet another perm utation of Louisiana music, the Boogie Kings are a white soul group who have produced an almost exact cover of a New O r­ leans R&B classic hit, Aaron Neville’s “Tell It Like It Is.” June 1988 / 355 As you can see, my enthusiasm for the place of popular music in an academ ic setting is high. T hat does not mean there are no pitfalls, including the very real problem of protecting the collection from theft. This is crucial when you are dealing with a non-research collection like ours with materials readily accessible and therefore stealable. CDs are especially vulnerable. And we have had other problems, such as find­ ing the funds to keep the project going. Unfortu­ nately the Main Library is no longer able to allo­ cate special grants or allow us to utilize non-music budget lines. Since the Music Library budget must continue to be earmarked for curriculum -related purchases, we have for the first time applied for grant money to purchase additional popular and local music materials. I am exploring other options as well and feel confident that we will be able to continue adding to the existing collection. The popular music collection has indeed turned out to com plem ent and not com pete w ith the cu rricu lu m -o rien ted m aterials in our lib rary . Knowing the limitations, being aw are of the pri­ m ary mission of the university, and remaining sen­ sitive to the politics and economics of the situation makes integrating popular music into our collec­ tion feasible and rewarding. So if you are planning to be in New Orleans this July for the ALA Annual Conference, take the St. Charles streetcar uptown (a tourist “must” in any case) and come visit us at the Loyola Music L i­ b ra ry . You are w elcom e to use our co llectio n , w hether you’re interested in B ach , the Boogie Kings o r— better yet— both! E d ito r’s note: This article is based on a p ap er p re ­ sented at the A nnual M eeting o f the Popular C u l­ tu re A ssociation in N ew O rlea n s‚ M a rc h 2 5 , 1988. (l-r) Marcello Buzzonetti, Secretary, E u rop ea n University Institute‚ Fiesole, Italy; Assunta Pisani, Collection D evelopm ent L ibrarian, H arvard University; and Mario Casalini M anaging D irector, Casalini L ibri, Fiesole. Credit: Martha Brogan WESS goes to Florence T o th e secon d in te rn a tio n a l c o n fe re n c e of A C R L ’s W estern European Specialists Section, held in Florence, Italy, on April 4 - 8 , 1988, cam e 90 U.S. librarians to meet with 60 W estern E u ro ­ pean librarians, publishers, and book distributors. The aim of the conference, entitled “Shared Re­ sources, Shared Responsibilities,” was to enable these people to meet with each other and to discuss current collection development realities, trends and problems. One particular emphasis for Ameri-