A paper outlining a vision for the future of music libraries has been published by an alliance of music organisations.
The Music Libraries Trust, Making Music and the UK and Ireland branch of the International Association of Music Librarians hope Music libraries in the UK: a vision for the future can help protect access to and sustainability of music resources.
The public library network has been traditionally the largest and most cost-effective provider of sheet music, but they have been impacted by local authority budget cuts over the last 20 years.
The paper states that every music group should have access to printed music and recommends creating a national steering group, consisting of funders, operators and users, to explore how to integrate services and resources at a national level, and safeguard material when a local service closes.
Making Music CEO Barbara Eifler says work with local authorities and service provides has shown its is possible to “ensure a future for music libraries while relieving under-resourced local authorities of all or most of the financial burden”.
“We look forward to this vision opening up a conversation which will benefit all parties in the longer term and underpin the thriving community music scene for which the UK is rightly known.”