Bibliothécaire Musical : Un Métier En Transition ?
I went on a two day congres of music librarians in Orléans, organized by ACIM (Association pour la coopération des professionnels de l’information musicale) on 18th and 19th March 2024. It was absolutely fantastic! It was my first conference with this association and this year's theme was "Bibliothécaire Musical : Un Métier En Transition ?"
1st Day
We had an ecological beginning of the conference. Vincent Lostanlen talked about digital music and ecology. He had a lot of information and he shared a lot of resources that I'm planning to read, especially a book from Kyle Devine, called Decomposed. He also talked about philosophical questions of technology and music, and posed a question - do we really need digital music everywhere, all the time, whenever we want?
The first round table was themed "Écologie de la musique en bibliothèque" with the guests from AMMAREAL (recycling solutions), Centre National de la Musique and Comission Bibliothéques Vertes ABF. It was interesting talk, and I learned that CNM is selling some second hand materials, and that there is a blog from the Comission Bibliothéques Vertes ABF.
There was another interesting round table titled "Quelles compétences pour des collections en transition?" where I understood again how there is no really a one way, or one education road that one should take. It's all about experimenting, trying things, and I've seen that there are many non librarians, who are working as managers of music and cinema departments.
After lunch, we had an atelier about borrowing instruments and other objects, but it was more like a questions and answers format. I have seen some webinars about lending instruments and it didn't surprise me that lending instruments is a massive hit. I hope that our library will get the instruments soon, and then there will be a lot of work to prepare everything. This topic makes me feel zen.
On the evening we had a nice party and it was nice to drink beers with colleagues and listen to music.
2nd Day
In the morning we went to visit Médiathèque Orléans, their music and cinema department. It's in a nice building, almost completely surrounded by windows so there was a loooot of light, I loved it. It's on the 4th floor and it's it was absolutely fantastic! It's a massive floor, with long isles of music CDs, small aditorium with TNI and partitions.
There are vinyl and CD listening stations with a view to the streets.
And the best of all, STUDI'O. People can enter and practice music, there are various instruments to play and a recording station available for members. I was drooling! :D
After one hour, we had to go back to the conference, where we listened a talk about music in the library. It was an interesting talk, inspiring, with some stats, and I enjoyed it. At the end, there were poster sessions, where librarians or various companies talked about their projects, and ideas.
Conclusion
I learned so much on this conference there was so many people that I realized that music in libraries is strong and here to stay. I was also happy to find Boris on this conference, a music librarian who I met in the formation in BNF. We sit together and he helped me with translation during two days. Can't wait for the conference next year in BNF :)