Orchestra librarians must learn how to master scores of highly specialized skills

When it comes to libraries, most people think of books. But as the American Library Association points out, there many types of libraries, including public, academic, school, specialty, research, digital and national.

Music institutions worldwide, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, maintain their own libraries.

The Major Orchestra Librarians’ Association (MOLA) consists of members representing hundreds of orchestras worldwide. MOLA members’ job duties include locating and accessing scores, obtaining the necessary rights and permissions to use scores, preparing musicians’ parts for performing in concert and on recordings, cataloging music and dealing with last-minute situations.

Orchestral librarians have a broad range of training. While they are not required to hold specific degrees, they have expertise in the following fields: music knowledge (score-reading skills, transposing, repertoire and instrumentation; copyright and licensing; research and reference; exceptional organizational skills with attention to detail.

When surveyed about what they consider the most important part of their jobs, orchestra librarians often respond, “To have the right music in the right place at the right time.” When asked how they view their role in the orchestra, they declare: “As musicians!”

As a professional non-playing orchestra member, Paul Gunther worked in orchestra libraries since joining the Minnesota Orchestra in 1975, where he served as assistant librarian until 1978. After eight years as Milwaukee Symphony librarian, he returned in 1986 to the Minnesota Orchestra as principal librarian, where he remained until his retirement in 2017. Other libraries where he has worked include those of the Nashville and San Diego symphonies and the New York Philharmonic.

For 11 years, Gunther served on the governing board of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians. He was a founding member in 1983 and twice president of the Major Orchestra Librarians Association.

In a blog post, he described the typical duties of an orchestral librarian: “We librarians are responsible for the care, upkeep, distribution and research involving all the music that’s performed, whether it’s sheet music or whether it’s digital. We’re responsible for making sure that music reaches the people playing it in the best possible way so there’s as little barrier as possible between the musicians playing and the audience listening.

“That can range from a task as mundane as contacting a music publisher or printer and saying, ‘We need these parts, please send them’ to something much more profound such as ‘which version of this music do you want and how do we know what’s best for this conductor and players?’ ”

“For example, there are works that have many different versions and compositions that are hard to find because they aren’t particularly popular. We have to know how to do research and have connections. That’s one reason we have an international organization [the Major Orchestra Librarians’ Association].

“If you ask who’s my boss, I’ll tell you I have 150 bosses because I could get a call from any department or position in the orchestra, and that’s my job [to help]. At Minnesota, we have three full-time librarians and extra part-time help as needed. It’s a big task, and I’ve been doing it for decades and never get bored.”

Music librarianship is a profession in public libraries and academic libraries, but “it’s not the same profession as in performance libraries,” he said. ’They intersect somewhat. Librarians, in general, are researchers and helpers. Nobody goes into any kind of library business without wanting to serve, and this is no exception.

"I like to say that librarians are the strange marriage between a musician and a librarian, which means a music librarian is both a high-strung artist and a complete nerd. So you get the best or possibly worst of both worlds.”