Music Librarianship - Professional Organizations

Professional Organizations

Professional organizations related to music librarianship include:

• The Music Library Association (MLA): the official organization for the music librarianship profession link
• International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (IAML): a group with a wide scope, sustaining the development of music library projects around the world.
• Major Orchestra Librarians' Association (MOLA): Generally dedicated to performance music library issues, MOLA membership is open to conductors, musicians, and publishers, as well as performance music librarians.
• Association of College and Research Libraries, Arts Section (ACRL ARTS): ACRL ARTS is a division of the American Library Association (ALA), the main professional organization for librarians in the United States. This division focuses on both visual and performing arts, and is like a smaller version of the Music Library Association.
• Online Audiovisual Catalogers (OLAC): a support website for cataloging issues related to AV materials, aiding in communication between catalogers as a means to develop uniform cataloging practices.
• Theatre Library Association (TLA): The TLA is a support organization for librarians involved with performing arts collections, including dance, motion picture, and broadcasting.
• Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG): The Music Online Computer Library Center Users Group is a resource for music librarians who use OCLC services.
• American Musicological Society (AMS): The organization dedicated to research in different fields of music.
• Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC): supports all types of audio collections and professions related to sound recordings. ARSC is geared particularly toward preservation and projects studying sound recordings and collections.
• Society for American Music (SAM): The organization concerned with all aspects of North and Central American (and Caribbean) music.

Additionally, music librarians will find support from academic and corporate institutions that offer grants, continuing education, inter-institutional cooperation (such as interlibrary loan or out-sourced services like digitization), and resources aiding in the completion of tasks in the field.