Welcome back, Hawkeyes!
The Rita Benton Music Library is excited to have students and faculty return to campus to use the scores, books, recordings, journals, and other resources available in our stacks. It can be tricky to navigate the Music Library for the first…or twentieth…time, so every year our resident mascot Wulfie Parsons writes up his favorite tips and tricks so patrons can have the best experience possible when using the library.
- Go for a walk in the stacks.
Wulfie likes to go for a stroll throughout the library. It reminds him where things are located, he likes to look at the covers of the new magazine issues by the west window, and he always takes a moment to howl under the Chihuly sculpture by the south window.
Taking a walk through the stacks can help you figure for where the scores are located, how to find biographies of your favorite composer or performer in the books, and a chance to try out the push-button compact shelving at the very back of the library. Don’t worry, the shelves can’t close on you while browsing the collection, though we can’t comment on if that’s why Wulfie has such a short tail. 🙁
- Grab a Call Number Cheat Sheet.
Whatever your voice or instrument, the Music Library has a short cheat sheet of call numbers to help you browse in the stacks. For example, if you’re a trombone player, it will show you that Solos are in M90-94 while Methods Books are in MT 460-472.
The Cheat Sheets are available in the Lobby area of the Music Library, just to your right after entering. You can also find them on the multiple voice and instrument guides on the Music Library’s website.
Strings | Woodwinds | Brass | Percussion | Piano and Organ (coming soon) | Voice
- Lost? Ask for help!
Even a stroll through the stacks won’t unlock all the Music Library’s secrets. Sometimes, you might need help finding a score or have questions about accessing a library database, or want recommendations of where to look for books on a topic or scores for a certain ensemble. The friendly student workers and full-time staff at the Music Library are here to help, so head over to the Service Desk and ask for assistance. If you need help with your research and would like to talk to our Music Librarian, Katie Buehner, you can schedule a time to meet with her on Zoom or in person, or you can email her your questions.
- Take that phone call in the hall.
Please do not hold Zoom and other video or audio phone calls in the Music Library. The Library is one of the few quiet spaces in Voxman, and students seem to prefer it that way. If you need to hold a video or audio phone call, there are many other spaces in Voxman that are less disruptive to others and their studies.
If you are studying in the Music Library and receive a call, please step into the hallway to answer it.
- Treats, not meals.
Wulfie’s a big fan of treats, like biscuits and pig’s ears. But he saves messy things, like wet food, for eating outside of the Music Library. Please feel free to bring snacks, like granola bars or a cup of coffee (with a lid), into the Music Library, but please eat meals, like Panchero’s burritos or pizza in the Student Lounge one floor below. There are trash and recycling bins located at the library entrance and near the printers where you can dispose of empty containers and other food-related debris. And you can always bring Wulfie a treat, he’s particularly fond of chicken bits.
- Don’t be alarmed by the Computer Lab.
If the Library is open, please enter the adjacent Computer Lab THROUGH THE LIBRARY. If you try to enter or exit from the hallway, a very loud alarm will sound. When the Library is closed, you can swipe into the Computer Lab from the Hallway using your Iowa One Card.If you accidentally trigger the alarm, library staff can turn it off.
We usually don’t need to be told, it’s loud enough that we’ll come running…while Wulfie howls along.
- Check out – or help us populate – Wulfie’s Instagram!
Wulfie likes to share his library adventures with friends online, and you can find his feed @wulfieparsons on Instagram. If you take a selfie with Wulfie, tag him! And he always appreciates a scritch between the ears, it can be good luck before a test or a jury.
This Fall, come to the Voxman Music Building for BAND 141, a look at the Hawkeye Marching Band. Director Eric Bush donated a significant collection of materials from the Band’s history including photographs, drill charts, papers, scrapbooks, uniform pieces, audio and video recordings, and other memorabilia to the Rita Benton Music Library in 2020. The exhibit draws from these donated materials, as well as several other collections held in University Archives such as the 
The exhibit opened September 3. Start your visit on the first floor by the School of Music offices where you can explore the band’s history through its thirteen directors, core song list, innovative formations, and wide ranging uniforms. The exhibit continues on the second floor alongside the Recital Hall, highlighting the Band’s drum majors, alumni, the Golden Girl, and Scottish Highlanders. And lastly, keep your eye online for certain exhibit pieces either on the HMB’s social media feeds or the Music Library’s website. 
Marian Wilson Kimber is Professor of Musicology in the School of Music. She has published numerous articles about Felix Mendelssohn, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel and spoken recitation in concert life. Her book, The Elocutionists: Women, Music, and the Spoken Word (University of Illinois Press, 2017) won the H. Earle Johnson Subvention from the Society for American Music. Wilson Kimber is a founding member of the duo, Red Vespa, which performs comic spoken word pieces by women composers.
Student from Dr. Suhadolnik’s Fall 2018 American Music seminar mounted the exhibit, “Exploring Our Sounds: Traditions of American Music Making at the University of Iowa.” The exhibit stayed up through August 2019 and examined curriculums, student musical life, and composers. 
The Library was at the School of Music’s Audition Day, connecting with potential students and chatting with current ones. Button making was on the menu again, this time featuring photos of UI students with their instruments or singing in opera or chorus – and of course, imprinted with library call numbers!
In March, the Library was at the School’s Donor Appreciation Concert talking about the School of Music Recordings Archives with alumni and donors. We had old concert and recital programs dating back to the 19th century, as well as demos of the digital archiving of recordings, both audio and video. 
In April, Alan and Ann January donated over 150 wax cylinders and a gramophone player to the Music Library. In May, we found out that 13 of the cylinders were one-0f-a-kind early Czech music recordings made in the United States by jeweler Eduard Jedlička. 
May was momentous, as the Music Library helped local musician and donor Carey Bostian begin the process of transferring the James Dixon Papers to the University’s archives. Three van loads later, and the Library’s Seminar Room was FULL with the over 2,000 scores and 30 boxes of papers belonging to Dixon and his mentor, Greek conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos. The rest of the summer was spent sorting the score collection in preparation for preservation and exhibition.
In June, Library Assistant Christine Burke and her ensemble performed one of her compositions in [ramp] fest, a concert sponsored by the UI Stanley Museum of Art in the Tower Parking Garage. Christine’s works have been performed this year in Los Angeles, Chicago, Columbus (OH), Pittsburgh, and of course, Iowa City! One of the performers in the ensemble was student worker and Bentz Scholarship winner, Alex Spenceri. 
In August, the Music Library moved over 10,000 LPs to the Libraries Annex facility. An additional 2,000+ titles were withdrawn (duplicate with online or CD content). Around 3,000 titles remain in the Music Library; mostly jazz, UI recordings, saxophone literature (supporting the Iowa Saxophone Archive), and other unusual or semi-rare items. Annex LPs are still available to patrons via request in InfoHawk+/Aeon. The relocation of the LPs provided the Music Library with much needed processing and storage space.
In honor of his receiving two awards from area organizations this fall, the Music Library mounted an exhibit of materials about world-renowned bass-baritone and Iowa graduate, Simon Estes. Dr. Amy McBeth curated the display which reviewed his time as a student, his exceptional career, and his philanthropic work.
The Music Library took 16 brown wax cylinders to the 
The inaugural Benton Student Worker Scholarships were awarded to senior public policy major Olivia Waller and junior music major Anastasia Scholze. These two scholarships were made possible by generous donations from 
Every semester, the UI Catering hosts “Lunch with the Chefs,” which is a “pop-up lunch” based around a theme. This fall’s theme, “The Beatles – Come Together!” was a perfect match for the Music Library’s collections. Working with UI Special Collections, the RBML created a pop-up exhibit of vinyl records, books, and other materials drawn from 
Following Dixon’s death in 2007, the library was inherited by Dr. Carey H. Bostian II, a cellist and conductor who was one of Dixon’s last students at the UI. Bostian worked to organize the collection and created an inventory and became yet another contributor to its content. Four years later, the New York Philharmonic launched the Leon Levy Digital Archives, which now includes over 3000 digitized scores, 36,000 orchestral parts, 14,000 programs, and over 50,000 images and photographs. Included in the Archives is Mitropoulos’ score of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony (which the conductor premiered in the United States with the Philharmonic in 1947), loaned to the Philharmonic by Dr. Bostian for digitization. This single score loan led to a collaboration between Bostian, the Philharmonic Archives, and the Rita Benton Music Library (e.g., the Mitropoulos exhibit in Lincoln Center).
Dimitri Mitropoulos’ Music Library