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The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians has been on the shelf for two years now, and the pride and excitement I felt when it first appeared, due to my small contributions to its content and completion, have not diminished. As a reference librarian, I use it constantly myself and with patrons to answer a wide spectrum of questions. As a cataloger, I turn to it for birth and death dates, help in establishing names and uniform titles, and for the date of composition for music (to be stored in field 045 of the MARC format). As a researcher, I delve into it time and time again for the opinions of respected scholars and for data in worklists and bibliographies.

“The organisation of any library depends on the men and women who work there. They have a very important job. They are the indispensable middle‐men of culture and science, and in opening this library we ought to remember that its success will depend on them as much as on what is in it.”—The Duke of Edinburgh, opening the Scottish Central Library on November 5th, 1953.