NLS Music Section Moves to John Adams Building on Capitol Hill

Over the past year, the NLS Music Section has been preparing to move from 1291 Taylor St. NW—which has been the home of NLS and the NLS Music Section since 1967—to the John Adams Building at the main Library of Congress campus on Capitol Hill. Although most of NLS had to consider moving themselves and their equipment, we were one of the few sections that also had to consider the movement of our collection, which not only contains the largest collection of braille music in the world, but also our large print music and historical archives.

When we first learned of the imminent move, our first task was to figure out the footprint of our collection, and to determine how small we could potentially get that footprint while still being able to provide service and materials to our patrons as we have been for over sixty years. Although our collection consists of large print, audio, and braille materials, much of the space was taken up by our braille music collection, which consists of over 20,000 individual titles. So, our first task was to determine what was to be done with that collection.

Thanks to our ongoing digitization effort, we provide much of our braille material digitally on BARD (Braille Audio Reading Download), or create access copies by embossing on demand for patrons. For the braille titles that were not yet digitized, we continue to scan these scores on a regular basis and prioritize patron requests that were not yet digitally available. This workflow allows us to shift from considering our braille as an actively circulating collection, requiring multiple copies per title, to treating the original physical braille books as an archival collection that does not circulate to patrons.

Therefore, we made the somewhat difficult decision to weed our collection down to one original copy per title, or two if it was a popular title that had not yet been digitized. If patrons request a title that is not yet digitized, we scan this title, proofread the scan, emboss the title, and provide the patron with an access copy. This was a momentous shift in the Music Section’s mindset; however, we knew that by reducing the number of copies on hand we could better preserve the original master braille scores and ensure that the largest collection of braille music in the world will be accessible to NLS patrons well into the future.

With our strategy in mind, we started the work of going through the collection title by title and double checking that each title was cataloged (if not, those books were set aside for future cataloging), that there were copies available (if not, we flagged those titles as not having shelf copies available), and flagging the titles that were the most popular in the Music Section’s history (at least since 1985, which is how far back our circulation records currently go). Then, we would select the best copy (or two if it was a popular book) available for each title to be moved with us to Adams. We completed this process for both our braille and large print collections, which was the brunt of our work and took roughly eight months to complete. We were lucky to have help along the way, with two HACU interns in the fall of 2023, and interns from the University of Maryland iSchool that also assisted in the early summer of 2024.

In addition to the hands-on help, we were very glad to have Beatriz Haspo join the NLS team near the end of 2023. Beatriz came to NLS with much experience in the world of collection space management, as you can read in her blog from November 2023: “What Is the Planograph?” Beatriz created a new planograph for the Adams Building to determine the future footprint of the NLS Music collection along with other collections moving from Taylor Street. We had to make considerations for the size (both height and depth) and orientation of the scores (whether they needed to lie flat or could be stored upright). Beatriz’s work on this ensured that every single book had an assigned location ready to go in their new home in the Adams Building.

For both collections, we also needed to separate the titles based on size. This was to maximize the shelf space available to us in the Adams Building. For braille, we split the collection into short scores (those less than 8 inches tall), medium scores (those between 8 and 10 inches tall), and regular scores (those greater than 10 inches tall).  We also separated our large print scores that needed to lie flat from those that could be shelved upright.

The Music Section completed its preparation for the move in early June, and after over 12 months of laying the groundwork, the Music Section and its collection moved to Capitol Hill in early July. The months of preparation paid off, as the move of both people and collection materials went extremely smoothly to our new home in the Adams Building. Now, the Music Section embarks on its new digital future where we will be able to provide more scores to more patrons through BARD, and through embossing and printing on demand. This will require us to increase our digitization and proofreading efforts, along with printing, embossing, and preparing braille and large print scores for patrons. As we shift to this new strategy of service, we are grateful that we can provide a new and improved home for one of the treasures of the Library, while continuing to provide our patrons with the same great service.

If you’d like to learn more about the NLS Music Section, our services, and how you can borrow music materials, please visit our website, e-mail us at [email protected], or call us at 800-424-8567 extension 2. You can also find much of our materials on BARD. If you are new to BARD, you can find more information about signing up here: Sign up for BARD and BARD Mobile.