Australia.

Wood, Jonathan

IAML Australia is now required to meet once a year and it was confirmed at the Hobart Conference and meeting in September 2008 that, because of incorporation, we are required to hold an annual general meeting. This year our AGM will take place at the University of Sydney in October.

The IAML membership has remained fairly steady over the past year but there is a recognised need to galvanise and revitalise our organisation. To this end we have introduced a trial no-fee 2-year young-generation membership (under 35 years old) as a way to encourage input from a younger breed of music librarians and archivists. We need to encourage greater participation and injection of ideas from the membership because, otherwise, a heavy burden of responsibility lies with our National Executive. This will be discussed at our annual general meeting in Sydney. Because Australia is such a large continent with membership far-flung across the huge divides of Western Australia, Northern Territory, the East Coast and Tasmania maybe teleconferencing will be the way to go for some of our annual meetings in the future. Our membership is required to spend big on air travel to meet up and network at our annual gatherings.

Since September 2008 we have a new Executive and new office bearers have been learning the ropes!

Some events and projects to comment on over the past year:

Australia's most important and prodigious composer, Peter Sculthorpe, is IAML Australia's patron and he had his eightieth birthday in April 2009. He will be involved in many celebrations for the next six months and is also still in demand for composition commissions including a new string quartet. Peter Sculthorpe has created a unique voice for Australian classical music and has most recently included the didgeridoo as a necessary element of his work. The IAML membership Australia sent Peter birthday wishes for his eightieth birthday. You may have heard some Sculthorpe performed at the Sydney International Conference in 2007.

The Conservatorium library, Sydney Conservatorium of Music (University of Sydney) has been involved in a digitisation project to provide PDF scores of some of Australia's contemporary composers for use by the University community. Some of the self-publishing composers include Nigel Butterley, Michael Smetanin, and Damien Ricketson. A special license agreement was drawn up between the University and the project composers. A launch of Australian Composers Online took place in May 2009.

Plans are already underway for our Brisbane conference in August 2010 which is taking place to coincide with the 76th IFLA General Conference and Assembly.

Jonathan Wood

President, IAML (Australia)