Library | Location & Facilities
The Library is administered on the College's behalf by Birmingham City University's Library and Learning Resources.It is housed in modern archival facilities at:
Records Centre, Attwood Building , Birmingham City University, Perry Barr, Birmingham , B42 2SU
The following link will give you directions to the City North Campus at Perry Barr:
>http://www.bcu.ac.uk/university/site_city_north.html
The Library is in the Attwood Building, which is marked 'A' on this large scale map of the campus:
>http://www.bcu.ac.uk/university/pb_map.html
All visits to the site must be arranged with the Library Manager (part-time) on 0121 331 7266 or at >library@rco.org.uk
The following library facilities are currently available:• The RCO Library Online Catalogue.
Some parts of the RCO Library have now been catalogued electronically, in particular most of the sheet music for organ.
Cataloguing is continuing in other areas and news of additions to the electronic catalogue will be announced when appropriate. When seeking sheet music titles Members are encouraged to search this catalogue ahead of contacting the Library Manager with requests for loan (appointment and postal) and reference (appointment only) material. There are some restrictions on the lending of sheet music, largely dependent on the age and condition of an item. Enquiries about this and about access to all the other material in the RCO Library should be made direct to the Library Manager >library@rco.org.uk. To log on to the Online Catalogue >click here.
• Postal borrowing for RCO Members
If you are an RCO Member you may borrow music, books, recordings, and examination support materials (music and books for set periods and topics, preparatory test material and past aural examination recordings). For more information about the current online catalogue and the general availability of material see 'Online catalogue' above. There will a charge for postage, packing, and administration, payable in advance. For full details of how this facility works, please apply to the Library Manager at >library@rco.org.uk
• Access by appointment
Access to the RCO Library is strictly by appointment only and subject to availability. Making an appointment is essential as space is limited to one person at a time. Even the return of loaned material must be scheduled, however brief. Appointments are available for one morning (10:00-13:00) and one afternoon (14:00-17:00) per week. These are currently set at Tuesday mornings and Thursday afternoons. Any fraction of these periods may be taken (from 15 mins to the full 3 hours) and Members, subject to availability, will be limited to 5 three-hour sessions in any one calendar month.
As the collections are housed in closed access shelving, material will be brought to readers, who must, as far as possible, request titles in advance (see 'Online catalogue' above). For material not on electronic catalogue, please consult the Library Manager >library@rco.org.uk
• Photocopying
A photocopying facility is currently not available. The availability of a photocopying service is subject to periodic review.
• Library events
The Library will be the focus of occasional events during which aspects of the holdings, their history and current development, will be explored. Some will relate to examination syllabus repertoire and topics. News of these events will be posted on this webpage.
• Beyond the Printed Edition: Buxtehude's Organ Music
Dr Geoffrey Webber's extensive commentary on the current editions of Buxtehude's organ music (first announced in the RCO Journal 2007) is now available to Members in the 'Downloads' area of this website. >Click here to go straight to 'downloads' (if you are already signed in) or >click here to sign in.
Dr Webber's web-based commentary on each Buxtehude organ work marks the Buxtehude Tercentenary year (Buxtehude died on 9 May 1707). The aim of this new web-resource is to allow players to move beyond having to rely on any one edition, and to make their own informed decisions about the textual problems faced hitherto only by the editors. The material in the new resource has four principal aims: first, it informs the reader of the principal textual problems associated with each piece; second, it divulges the solutions to these problems given in the various editions; third, it provides a fresh judgement on many of the solutions suggested in the various editions; fourth, it offers new resolutions where appropriate to many of the difficulties encountered. The material can be read alongside any of the five post-1950 editions.
There are ten documents in the web resource:
Introduction and Index*
Part One - Non-chorale compositions ex C
Part Two - Non-chorale compositions ex D
Part Three - Non-chorale compositions ex E
Part Four - Non-chorale compositions ex F and F#
Part Five - Non-chorale compositions ex G
Part Six - Non-chorale compositions ex A (and Quarti Toni)
Part Seven - Chorale compositions A-M
Part Eight - Chorale compositions N-Z
Aspects of Performance Practice
* This is a slightly revised version of the text that appeared in RCO Journal No. 1 (New Series), 2007, pp. 6-17.
Dr Webber would be happy to receive corrections and/or suggestions at >gaw25@cam.ac.uk. It is envisaged that updated material will be added periodically to this commentary. Any other enquiries and correspondence about the resource should be directed to Andrew McCrea, Director of Academic Development at >andrew.mccrea@rco.org.uk.
Geoffrey Webber was Organ Scholar at New College Oxford, where he studied organ with Nicholas Danby and Gillian Weir. He completed a doctorate on the transmission of Italian idioms in North German church and organ music in the seventeenth century, and was appointed Precentor and Director of Studies in Music at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge in 1989. He is the author of North German Church Music in the Age of Buxtehude (OUP, 1996) and co-editor with Nicholas Thistlethwaite of The Cambridge Companion to the Organ (CUP, 1998). His plans for the Buxtehude anniversary year include two articles for Early Music and a Choral Evensong on BBC Radio 3.