Maine Motif Issue 1, Vol. II (Fall, 2017) | Page 20

A Library for Music Teachers
By Catherine Newell,General Music VP PK-5
A year ago, I was getting ready for a position in a new school. As part of my preparation,
I was asked to read two books from Responsive Classroom: The Power of Our Words
and The First Six Weeks of School. Not knowing whether I was going to like Responsive
Classroom, I was hesitant to spend $48 on my own copies. Instead, I hopped on
MaineCat to see if a nearby library had the book. No such luck. However, both books
were available through inter-library loan. If I requested the books, they could be
delivered to my local library! (As it turned out, I fell in love with Responsive Classroom
and ended up buying both books, plus two more from the series!)
This experience made me realize
how much I wished I could
borrow books and DVDs
specifically for music educators. I
can recall my first year as an
elementary music teacher with no
budget; thumbing through
catalogs and trying to decide
whether I could afford to buy my
own $200 copy of a particularly
famous music book. Year after
year, I always decided it was too
much of a risk to spend that much of my own money on one book. What if I ordered it
and used only two songs? What if my car needed a new timing belt and I needed the
money for rent? How many other things could I buy for my classroom with $200? I
was not the only elementary music teacher with a $0 budget ten years ago, and I suspect
this situation is just as common today. What if we could do something to level the
playing field for every music teacher? What effect could that have on that person’s
teaching? What could that do for Maine students?
Dr. Philip Edelman, Assistant Professor of Music at UMaine, has worked out an
arrangement with the University’s Fogler Library. They will host a collection of books
and multimedia specifically for music educators and music education students. The