When people think about libraries, they often imagine shelves lined
with a variety of books and journals. But a walk through Brown University's
Virginia Baldwin Orwig Music Library is quite a different experience.
Although Orwig houses over 50,000 books and bound scores, it is also
home to over 41,000 sound recordings, including about 25,000 compact
discs. Visitors will find students enjoying music at listening stations,
poring over music scores in the stacks and studying an impressive
collection of music facsimiles.
The Orwig Music Library first opened in 1988, after an addition had
been made to the Benton B. Orwig '20 Music Complex. Housed in an 1850
Italianate mansion, the renovations were made possible by Mr. Orwig's
widow, Virginia Baldwin Orwig. The Orwig Music Library offers a 2,000-square-foot
reading room, 9,000 square feet of stacks, administrative space and
a listening room.
Most recently, space has been made for digitizing audio recordings
for class reserves. "With the explosive growth of computerized audio
technology, it is now possible for us to digitize audio -- from compact
discs to cassettes, and even LP's or reel-to-reel original recordings,"
said Ned Quist, Brown's music librarian. "This allows students and
faculty to access selected recordings by computer, 24 hours a day."
Students and faculty receive passwords to a special website called
"Brown EARS (for Electronic Audio Reserve System)." They then login
with the class password, select an item to play from a list of digital
recordings, and play it on their own computer. "What's so exciting
about this technology," said Quist, "is that it eliminates our access
problem." Students don't have to wait for others to finish with recordings
on reserve before they can listen, and they can access these recordings
when the library isn't open.
"With this technology boom also come some challenges," said Quist.
"We struggle to repair some of our 'legacy' equipment. For example,
few manufacturers are making high-quality cassette decks these days,
which makes the repair of ours increasingly difficult." In addition
to equipment maintenance, keeping up with the technology is also a
challenge. Compact discs are changing and three new formats are now
available: super audio compact discs (SACDs), DVD audio and hybrid
SACDs playable on current compact disc players. All offer new enhancements
to sound quality, but with the exception of the latter also require
technological upgrades in listening systems.
Remarkably, some of the most impressive parts of the Orwig collection
are not high-tech. The James T. Koetting Archive contains field and
commercial recordings of music from Africa, Appalachia and many other
parts of the world. This collection has grown, in part, thanks to
the dedicated efforts of music faculty who purchase items for the
Library on their travels that could only be purchased abroad. The
Library also houses a collection of spoken word recordings -- primarily
of poetry and drama. Another exciting element of the collection is
a substantial array of microfilms of Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque
manuscripts and prints relating to music. And finally, the music facsimile
is an area of rapidly growing strength.
Music facsimiles are high-quality repro-ductions of a composer's original
scores that allow scholars to better understand a composer's original
intent with the music. "Printed editions can be corrupt," said Quist.
"A music facsimile can convey the composer's original intent and provides
much more information and perhaps even more of the character of the
composer's creation than a standard printed score." In recent years,
Associate Professor of Music David Josephson and former music librarian
Carol Tatian devoted considerable time to building and providing focus
for Orwig's collection of music facsimiles.
Recently, however, the collection has found a new benefactor. The
generosity of Mitchell Wolff '76 has enriched the collection greatly
and will allow the Library to selectively collect facsimiles of some
of the great masterpieces of Western music and make Brown's facsimile
collection one of the best in the country. Mitchell Wolff 's most
recent gift will allow the purchase of a facsimile of the autograph
manuscript of Verdi's Otello, as well as facsimiles of Puccini's
Tosca, Verdi's Rigoletto and Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony.
In honor of Mr. Wolff 's outstanding support, Brown will rename these
research materials the "Mitchell Wolff Music Facsimile Collection."
The Orwig Music Library has become an integral part of the Library
system and an invaluable campus resource. Its growing collections
have attracted scholars from around the world, who make use of some
of its unique items. So, the next time you are on campus, stop by
for a look or listen at Orwig, and expand your concept of what a Library
can be!
If you would like more information about the Orwig Music Library,
please contact Music Librarian Ned Quist via e-mail at 
Edwin_Quist@brown.edu
or via phone at (401) 863-3999.
