APPENDIX 9
Memorandum submitted by Sound Sense
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Sound Sense is the national development agency
for community music and musicians, often called a second-tier
or infrastructure organisation. We are a registered charity. We
are funded mainly by the Arts Council of England (ACE), by the
subscriptions of our members, and by grants and donations from
Charitable Trusts and the National Lottery. Our constituency covers
all nations of the UK, and also internationally.
1.2 We represent the work of music animateurs,
both freelance and attached to projects and arts organisations;
community and music projects; and the community and education
departments of orchestras and opera companies. These artists and
projects work with—literally millions of—people a
year assisting in their social, personal and community development
through active and creative participation in music. They work
primarily in the whole range of community venues, including from
time to time in libraries.
1.3 Our quarterly journal Sounding Board,
and monthly Bulletin Board, carry reports and information
from artists and projects on the work they undertake and the issues
they face, together with information and research reports. Issues
of concern are explored in our biennial conference and regular
area gatherings. We run information and advice services for members
and non-members. Our evidence to this Committee is based on research
collected through all these channels.
1.4 We recommend:
1.4.1 Social inclusion should be a major
role for public libraries. In carrying out this function, libraries
should consider the opportunities they afford for acting as venues
for community music work.
1.4.2 Community music has a major role to
play in Lifelong Learning agendas; and it is important for the
development of community music that libraries enhance their role
in supporting Lifelong Learning.
1.4.3 Sound Sense's own function is to act
as a knowledge hub at a national level. But community music activities,
by definition, take place at very local levels. The New Library
Network is the essential route by which information can be developed
by us nationally and used by people locally; and we support initiatives
which enhance this network and the part we can play in it.
1.4.4 Sound Sense is contributing to collections
relating to community music, especially at the British Library.
It is important that these collections are seen by potential users
to be accessible, and consideration is given to increasing availability
through technology.
1.4.5 The essential prerequisite, of course,
is that the public library system is well funded to offer these
opportunities, and that it makes every endeavour to reach people
who are at risk of social exclusion.
2. ACCESS TO
LIBRARIES
2.1 Our definition of community music is
that it "puts equal opportunities into practice". Social
inclusion is therefore at the core of Sound Sense's work.
2.2 Public libraries are known to be a community
venue where people feel at ease (as found in Comedia research)
and so the role of libraries in combating social exclusion must
surely be one of their major roles. But this very positive feature
has scarcely begun to be exploited as an opportunity for community
arts to take place and for people to have access to participation
in music-making. There were only very few examples of music projects
in libraries in the National Year of Reading, and we believe that
libraries could offer so much more in terms of venue, and of themes,
for community music as these examples from previous years show:
As part of its community education programme
the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds commissioned six 10-minute operas
from young composers and writers. The pieces were rehearsed in
a summer school by local people. One piece (on the subject of
books and learning) was performed twice in the town's library
on a busy August Saturday to the amazement and delight of both
the ad-hoc audiences and library staff.
Sunderland held a series of musical mornings
for parents and toddlers, with a guitarist who made up songs with
the young children, and got them to sing their favourite nursery
rhymes. They chose the library as the venue because it was a well-known
safe haven, visited by a wide cross-section of the city's population.
3. PROMOTION
OF EDUCATION
AND LIFELONG
LEARNING:
3.1 Public libraries have traditionally
had an important role in supporting education and Lifelong Learning.
Many community music projects are a part of Lifelong Learning
and many people become community musicians through ongoing study
and learning outside of full-time formal education. Sound Sense
would expect that libraries would continue to support learning,
with provision of necessary and up-to-date materials, and access
to technology, particularly for those involved in remote learning.
4. PROMOTION
OF ACCESS
TO NEW
TECHNOLOGY
4.1 The role of public libraries in community
information is enhanced by their offering access to information
imparted through new technology, especially to people whose only
opportunity to access the world wide web is in public libraries.
This is a vital link in social inclusion activities, and Sound
Sense is particularly supportive of the new Library Network because
it means that information can be developed by us nationally, and
accessed and used by people locally, which is where community
music-making takes place.
4.2 Therefore Sound Sense has been very
pleased to have the opportunity to form a partnership with Information
North whereby we supply community music information to the Information
North extranet so that this information is available in public
libraries across the north of England. We are looking forward
to entering into other such partnerships as public libraries develop
their technology-based community information. The Government's
support for the New Library Network is enabling the growth of
such information provision, and we hope that sufficient funds
will continue to be made available so that all public libraries
in the country will have access to new technology, so that no
group of people will be excluded from the potential information
available.
4.3 We also hope that the New Opportunities
Fund's support of digitisation of information will adequately
cover community information, which public libraries have fostered
for many years.
5. THE BRITISH
LIBRARY
5.1 Sound Sense has entered into an agreement
with the British Library to provide published and semi-published
recordings of community music to the National Sound Archive to
establish a collection and record of community music and its processes.
This offers the opportunity for community music to become accessible
to all those interested in its development. It is therefore important
that the British Library is perceived to be accessible by all
those wishing to access the collection. Moreover the increasing
application of technology could help to make its collections accessible
from other points around the country.
6. FUNDING
6.1 Underlying all the points above is the
essential prerequisite that the public library system is well
funded to offer the opportunities which are now expected of it,
and crucially to ensure that those whose only access to information,
arts activities, and learning is through the public libraries
are as well served as those who can access these activities through
other channels.
January 2000
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