Finland/Suomi.

Pelttari, Tuomas

The Branch has 62 members, of which 52 are institutional and 10 individual. The Board consists of 13 members, the officials being

Tuomas Pelttari (Turku City Library) as Chairman

Jarkko Rikkila (Tampere City Library) as Vice-Chairman

Ari-Pekka Lauhakari (Lahti Conservatoire Library) as Secretary and

Maaret Storgards (Music Archive JAPA) as Treasurer

The Branch's Autumn meeting was held in Helsinki at Music Finland on 8 December 2014, and the Spring meeting took place in Tampere, as part of the Spring Seminar on 24 April 2015. The Finnish Music Library Association and Tampere City Library Music Department put together the Annual Spring Seminar in collaboration with the Finnish Library Association's Music Team, BTJ Finland Ltd, and AVI Western and Inland Finland.

This year, the traditional Spring Seminar was indeed a very special occasion. Under the name Intohimona musiikkikirjastot (Passion for Music Libraries), the conference brought together nearly 100 music library professionals to celebrate two influential music librarians, Heikki Poroila and Kyosti Makela. On 24 April they were both given awards by the Finnish Library Association. To great applause, a special diploma was also given by the Finnish Music Library Association to both Poroila and Makela. On the verge of their retirements they were thanked for their work of great value in the Association, spanning several decades.

All the above-mentioned cooperation ensured that the Seminar Programme was once again high-profile. Speakers included Kyosti Makela ("Music in Libraries--From Marginal To Market, From Card Index To Conversion"), Tommi Viitamies ("The State of Music In HelMet Libraries)", Pekka Gronow ("When They No Longer Make CD Players--Music Libraries On The Internet"), Jari Petajaniemi and Tomi Pietila ("BTJ Finland Audio Services With 5.1 Set-Ups for Libraries"). Jyrki Valto's "Stand-Up Performance To Heikki" brought us hilarious insights into our colleague's work and influence.

Heikki Poroila ("Changes But Will Not Disappear") also took the Spring Seminar stage. He emphasized the great importance of our professional togetherness, the very essence that has kept us going when music libraries and their services have been under unfair scrutiny. Poroila thanked Pekka Gronow as being an important influence. As an embodiment of all hard-working colleagues, including those who were not able to attend the Spring Seminar, Poroila thanked Lea Tastula.

The Seminar also included musical guests. The Duo Ambrosius with Olli Virtaperko, cello, and Veli Kujala, accordion, gave an extraordinary intimate concert that included the music of Frank Zappa. The four-piece blues combo Talking Blues took the stage a bit later, playing classic songs and telling the stories behind them.

Our publication series Suomen musiikkikir-jastoyhdistyksen julkaisusarja, (ISSN 0784-0322) has one new title in print, namely Selim Palmgrenin savellykset (The Catalogue of the Works of Selim Palmgren) by Heikki Poroila. Palmgren (1878-1951), a composer, pianist and conductor of international renown was dubbed 'The Finnish Chopin.' The result of Poroila's massive work came out in November 2014 and is more than 400 pages long. In addition, our publication series has new titles to claim as PDFs: three uniform title catalogues were published, all written, updated, edited, etc., by Heikki Poroila.

The Branch has a new membership tariff based on their involvement only locally or internationally. The members can now choose whether to join the national association only or both the Finnish Branch of IAML and the national association.

Tuomas Pelttari

Chairman, IAML (Finland)