Sigma Alpha Iota

20 Spring 2022 • sai-national.org T oday the University of North Texas Music Library is nationally recognized for its scholarly resources and special collections, but just over eighty years ago the entirety of UNT's music collection fit inside a single storage closet. e music library's rapid development may be largely attributed to Anna Harriet Heyer, who became the Southwest's first full-time music librarian in 1940. Heyer served as the founder and head of the music library until 1965 and actively participated in UNT's musical activities through the early 1990s. She is oen depicted as the "isolated pioneer" of music librarianship because she entered the field in its early stages and worked thousands of miles away from other major music libraries, which were concentrated in the Midwest and along the East Coast (Bradley 2007). In a 1991 oral history interview, Heyer even used this term to describe herself, noting how her location made professional collaboration difficult (Heyer 1991). While Heyer was certainly isolated geographically, framing her life's work in this way sidelines the rich and varied connections that she fostered locally and nationally throughout her career. I must admit that my own research process began with an isolated mindset, and during my first few visits to the Edna Mae Sandborn Reading Room, where I worked through materials belonging to the Anna Harriet Heyer special collection, I approached her work from the perspective of a solitary individual working more or less alone. My initial objective was to reconstruct Heyer's process of conceiving, compiling, and publishing her landmark bibliographical work titled Historical Sets, Collected Editions, and Monuments of Music. e more time I spent with the collection, however, the clearer it became that Historical Sets was not the product of an isolated woman on the fringes of her field, but instead a highly collaborative endeavor that included librarians across the globe in sometimes surprisingly personal ways. Following this realization, I became increasingly interested in Heyer's apparent knack for creating or contributing to communities: at UNT, across her profession, and in her personal life. A large portion of Heyer's archival collection consists of her prolific correspondence, and while most of her letters are professional, frequent personal touches and informal slips suggest relationships deeper than strictly business acquaintances. For instance, Heyer's closest liaisons with the American Library Association, Marion Dittman and Pauline Cianciolo, oen commented on the weather, asked aer projects unrelated to her book, and celebrated Heyer's success more enthusiastically than one might expect from professional contacts. In a letter dated April 22nd, 1969, for example, Dittman invokes whooping Valkyries to congratulate Heyer on the upcoming publication of Historical Sets' second edition. Another business contact, Catherine Miller of Columbia University, also developed a personal relationship with Heyer. At one point the two women discussed collaborating on a manual that would help "isolated" librarians acclimate themselves to the profession; ironically, the physical distance separating them prevented this project from coming to fruition. Nevertheless, Heyer and Miller maintained a regular correspondence, discussing personal and professional matters, and occasionally sharing inside opinions about their field. Beyond her inner circle, Heyer's book generated widespread enthusiasm within music libraries across the United States. Historical Sets sought to provide complete bibliographic information for significant publications of single-composer music collections available in North America, Europe, and parts of Asia. Her project quickly developed a sort of fan club, and in addition to the correspondence that Heyer maintained to gather information about libraries' holdings, she regularly received friendly letters inquiring aer the work's progress. Following publication, many exuberant librarians sent letters of thanks, including a handwritten postcard from Harriet Nicewonger at Berkeley. Another librarian, Margaret Lospinuso, wrote Member Spotlight Anna Harriet Heyer, Curating Connection e work of SAI Anna Harriet Heyer, an initiate of the Iota theta Chapter at the University of North Texas (UNT), was recently featured in a UNT Music Library Blog post by Anna Wodny. Aer her initiation in 1943, Heyer later affiliated with the Denton Alumnae Chapter as a charter member. We share a reprint of the article here, with permission from the author and institution. Above: Photograph of Heyer taken at her retirement luncheon, possibly accepting Above: Photograph of Heyer taken at her retirement luncheon, possibly accepting the below bracelet, given to commemorate her twenty-five years as NTSU's music the below bracelet, given to commemorate her twenty-five years as NTSU's music librarian - 1965 (Box 12) librarian - 1965 (Box 12)

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