Click here for nomination information: Louis Rachow Award for Distinguished Service in Performing Arts Librarianship 2024 (Nominate by Sept. 9th 2024!)
Click here for application information: Brooks McNamara Performing Arts Librarian Scholarship 2024 (Apply by Sept. 9th 2024!)
Theatre Library Association celebrates the excellence of our profession by bestowing the Louis Rachow Distinguished Service in Performing Arts Librarianship Award on individuals who embody its best qualities.
Louis Rachow had a long and distinguished career in performing arts librarianship, highlighted by a quarter century as Curator/Librarian of the Hampden-Booth Theatre Library at The Players, followed by another decade as Library Director of the International Theatre Institute of the United States. His publications, as author and editor, helped to educate several generations of performing arts librarians in the practices and history of the field. Over the course of more than 50 years as a TLA member, he served as an executive board member, President, Vice President, chair of the nominating committee, editor of the newsletter, and liaison to the Special Libraries Association, the Council of National Library Associations, and the Library/Information Network-New York. He remained active in the organization throughout his life, holding the post of TLA Historian and attending events and board meetings whenever he was able. He passed away on August 28, 2017; he was 90.
In recognition of his exemplary record of service, the Distinguished Service Award was renamed in honor of Louis Rachow in 2013.
For more information about the Louis Rachow Distinguished Service Award, contact Drew Barker, Chair, TLA Professional Awards Committee.
Dorothy Lourdou hails from the state of California. Always a music student, she studied at University of Redlands as a pianist. She taught music for a few years at a private school in Utah before pursuing her Masters in Music at USC-LA where she followed up with a Library degree in 1959.
In that year, The New York Public Library hired her as a cataloger for the branch system where she worked for a few years and enjoyed her New York experience. Having a drive to visit Europe, Dorothy enrolled as an exchange library professional and landed in Hamburg. Based there, she was able to enjoy Wagner at Bayreuth Opera House and travel later to Greece, Rome, and Sweden. When she arrived back in New York, she returned to her cataloging job and gained experience assigning uniform titles to sheet music in circulation in the branch libraries. She was recruited to join the newly formed Dance Collection by Robert Ellis Dunn, the first Assistant Curator to Genevieve Oswald, founder and Curator. Dunn was a noted dancer/choreographer and helped initiate the postmodern dance movement in New York City. He was also a pianist, music theorist, and, coming from the western state of Oklahoma, had much in common with Dorothy.
As chief cataloger, Dorothy and Miss Oswald set out to form cataloging conventions for the field. At the same time, AACR had just been formulated and it was clear that global cataloging rules were in process. Machine readable cataloging (MARC) was new. Dorothy and staff coded catalog records using keypunch cards, paper tape, and later coded paper forms that were machine-read and transferred to magnetic tape. These all produced the Dictionary Catalog of the Dance Collection, 1974 that listed all formats of the holdings of the Dance Collection to that date. Yearly supplements added to the bibliography and were cumulated in a microfiche that gave access to all holdings. In the 1990s, The New York Public Library mounted a local catalog as a trial for online catalog access, This was accomplished through wires strung through the reading room, prone to being dislodged. But, it was a success for researchers and was succeeded by the integrated catalog still in use.
The challenge through the constant adaptations was to stay constant to the needs of dance research, and yet conform to the exigencies of library conventions. Lots of changes happened. After Dorothy retired, she put in months of work making universal updates of 600 headings to 700s according to new rules. Her cataloging life has been full of adjustments. Yet, the researcher was always prime in her work.
Retired, Dorothy plays piano every day. She travels widely and has enjoyed summers studying at Oxford. She loves birding and has visited Costa Rica many times.
Theatre Library Association is pleased to sponsor the Brooks McNamara Performing Arts Librarian Scholarship in memory of the achievements of this beloved theater historian, scholar, educator, and mentor.
Brooks McNamara – beloved theater historian, scholar, educator, and mentor – was Professor of Performance Studies at New York University and founder of the Shubert Archive.
The Brooks McNamara Performing Arts Librarian Scholarship acknowledges outstanding professional accomplishments of promising students currently enrolled in MLIS or archival training programs specializing in performing arts librarianship. The winner receives a $750 check and a one-year complimentary TLA membership.
The scholarship is offered every other year. Click here for the current form application.
For more information about the McNamara Scholarship, contact the chair of the Professional Awards Committee, Drew Barker (dbarker@umd.edu).
Megan Ralston-Munger recently graduated with her Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in June 2020. Having previously graduated summa cum laude with her Bachelor of Music degree from California State University, Fullerton, she has drawn extensively on her experience in the performing arts as she pursues a new career in librarianship.
During her undergraduate studies in vocal performance, Ralston-Munger received the Jane Rodriguez Memorial Scholarship in 2013 and 2014. Additionally, she won second place in the Senior Women division of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Los Angeles Chapter Competition in 2014, and first prize in the Best Handel Performance division of the Great Composers Competition series in 2017. After an incredible journey of music study that took her from singing opera in Hawai’i to a choir in Paris, Ralston-Munger decided to pursue a career in performing arts librarianship to continue drawing on her love of performance, but in an academic setting where her affinity for academia could also shine.
During the pursuit of her MLIS, Ralston-Munger worked to achieve a varied and inclusive look into the many different kinds of librarianship by pursuing different volunteer and internship opportunities. Her internships included working in the youth services department at Ovitt Family Community Library, working with the performing arts research librarian at University of California, Irvine, and finally an internship at the University Library at California State University, Long Beach.
Ralston-Munger is now the librarian at Ybarra Academy of Arts and Technology, where she is focusing on making the collection as diverse and accessible as possible.
2020 Professional Awards Committee: Drew Barker (Chair), Susan Brady, Jeannie Chen, Karen Nickeson, Kevin Winkler.