Bates librarian elected Music Library Association president

Paula Matthews, associate librarian and music librarian of the George and Helen Ladd Library at Bates College, has been elected vice president/president-elect of the Music Library Association (MLA). The organization’s election results were announced at its recent 67th annual meeting in Boston.

Matthews has worked at Ladd Library, where she also served as acting librarian, in a variety of capacities since 1978. From 1983-86, she worked as the art and music librarian of Bixler Art and Music Center at Colby College, where she also co-taught courses in the art history department.

Matthews also has worked as head of the bibliographic search unit at Columbia University (1979-82), music cataloguer for the Boston Public Library, assistant curator of prints and drawings/rare books department in the Yale Center for British Art, music librarian for the Openbare Muziekbibliotheek in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and assistant children’s librarian at the Iowa City Public Library.

Matthews attended Oberlin College Conservatory and the University of Iowa. She has been an active in the MLA in a number of positions, including member at-large on the organization’s board and chair of its nominating committee and personnel subcommittee.

Matthews co-authored Formal Planning in College Libraries, published by the Association of College and Research Libraries in 1994, and Cottage of Content; or Toys, Games and Amusements of 19th century England (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art.) The editor of several exhibition catalogues, Matthews also is the author of numerous articles and book reviews in music and library publications.

The Music Library Association is the professional organization in the United States devoted to music librarianship and to all aspects of music materials in libraries. Founded in 1931, MLA provides a forum for study and action on issues that affect music libraries and their users. MLA and its members make significant contributions to librarianship, publishing, standards and scholarship and the development of new information technologies. In the forefront of contemporary librarianship, MLA assures that users of music materials will be well served by their libraries.