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The Carol June Bradley Award for Historical Research in Music Librarianship was created by the Music Library Association in 2003 through the generous financial support of its namesake. Since Dr. Bradley’s death in 2009, MLA has continued to fund the award in her honor. The award exists to support research-in-progress in music librarianship or music libraries. There are no restrictions as to an applicant’s age, nationality, profession, or institutional affiliation. All proposals are reviewed entirely on the basis of merit. The decision of the Bradley Award Committee and the MLA Board of Directors is announced at MLA’s annual meeting. Calls for applications are issued in the spring.
Carol June Bradley (1934–2009) was the associate director of the University of Buffalo Music Library from 1967 until she retired in 1999. In addition, she was an adjunct professor of information and library studies (an activity that included co-directing the university’s double master’s degree program in music librarianship) and she founded the UB Libraries’ Music Librarianship Archive.
Bradley’s undergraduate degree was from Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pa. She also received a master’s degree from Western Reserve University and a Ph.D. in Library Science from Florida State University. Throughout her stellar career, Bradley held several other library positions in addition to those at the University of Buffalo. She was the librarian of the Drinker Library of Choral Music at the Free Library of Philadelphia (1957-59), the music librarian of the U.S. Military Academy (1959-60), and music cataloger at Vassar College (1960-67).
Bradley made her mark as an author with an important series of scholarly publications that chronicled the history of music librarianship and the lives and careers of music librarians throughout the country. Among these much-praised publications are American Music Librarianship: A Research and Information Guide (Routledge), Music Collections in American Libraries: A Chronology (Information Coordinators), Reader in Music Librarianship (Greenwood Press) and Index to Poetry in Music (Routledge).
Bradley was an active member of the Music Library Association (MLA), which awarded her the MLA Citation, its highest award, in 2001. In 2003, MLA established the Carol June Bradley Award for Historical Research in Music Librarianship, an annual award to support the kinds of studies for which Bradley was recognized. The first award was made in 2004.
