Statens musiksamlingar (SMS) / The Swedish National Collections of MusicAuthor(s): Anders LönnSource: Fontes Artis Musicae, Vol. 33, No. 2 (April-Juni 1986), p. 161Published by: International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres(IAML)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23507195 .

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161

Statens musiksamlingar (SMS) The Swedish National Collections of Music Anders Lönn (Stockholm)

Statens musiksamlingar is not a household word even among many musically knowledge

able Swedes. This is perhaps not to be wondered at, since the organization has existed only

since 1 July 1981 and has not done much to advertize itself, either at home or abroad. It is in

fact hardly more than an administrative umbrella for three pre-existing institutions, two of

them long-established and each with its own distinctive character and aims: the Library of

the Swedish Academy of Music (founded in 1771), the Music Museum (1899) and the Swedish Music History Archive (1965).

Until the establishment of SMS, the library was part of and the museum attached to the

Royal Swedish Academy of Music (cf. the Library article below), but were transferred to

form the new organization, together with the much smaller archive (actually a documenta

tion centre), which up to then had been a project funded by the Swedish Humanistic

Research Council. (Ten years earlier, the Academy had been divested of its other major

administrative charge, the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, in a reorganization of the

Swedish conservatory system.)

SMS, according to its terms of reference, is a "central organization in the field of music",

which shall "promote the interests of music and musicology" through library, museum and

documentation services. The intention behind the new state body, whose board reports

direct to the Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs - apart from a wish by the

government that had long been paying all the pipers (some 75 staff in all) to call the tune -

was to rationalize administration and make more efficient use of the resources of the three

institutions: a laudable enough concept. In practice, of course, their different fields of

competence meant that there was rather less to integrate than the government planners

imagined, and the new administrative structure has had relatively little impact on the day-to

day affairs (except for using up more of the budget). Otherwise the three institutions retain a

large measure of independence, and their aims and activities are essentially unchanged.

The Library and the Archive are presented below, together with the section of the

Museum that is most germane to Fontes readers, its holdings of musical source materials.

Both the Archive and the Museum have smaller libraries of their own, but for reference use

only, so that a fair amount of overlap with the Academy Library's circulating collection is

necessary, although the institutions coordinate their acquisitions when possible.

Les collections nationales suédoises de musique ont été créées en 1981 par le Ministère de l'Education

et des Affaires culturelles comme tutelle pour trois institutions préexistantes: Bibliothèque de

l'Académie de musique, Musée de la musique et Archives suédoises de l'histoire de la musique (cf. articles particuliers), sans cependant apporter de changements essentiels à leurs buts et leurs activités.

Unter der Bezeichnung „Schwedische Nationalsammlungen für Musik" wurden 1981 vom Mini

sterium für Erziehung und Kultur die drei bereits bestehenden Institutionen, Musikaliska akademiens

bibliotek (Bibliothek der Akademie für Musik), Musikmuseet (Musikmuseum) und Svenskt musikhis

toriskt arkiv (Schwedisches Musikhistorisches Archiv) zusammengefaßt (siehe die einzelnen Berichte

dazu), ohne daß ihre Ziele und Aktivitäten wesentlich geändert wurden.

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