New Music Librarian at NIU!

Hello Huskies! My name is Abbey Thompson and I'm thrilled and honored to be your new Music Librarian. My first day of work was June 1st, and after a peaceful summer to get acclimated to DeKalb and NIU, I'm ready to get this party started!

A bit about my background...

I have a Master of Arts in Musicology and a Master of Science Library Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2006 and 2008, respectively). I also have a Bachelor of Music degree in Performance (Vocal) from the University of California, Santa Barbara (2000).
Prior to taking the position here at NIU, I served as the Collection Services Manager for the Music Library at Princeton University. I have also worked at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities as a cataloger of rare childrens books, and for Southeastern Libraries Cooperating (Rochester, MN) as a Project Manager and music cataloger for the Chatfield Brass Band Music Lending Library. While in graduate school at UNC Chapel Hill I worked in the Metadata Research Center, Rare Books & Special Collections, and for the Southern Folklife Collection.

My scholarly interests include early music (particularly vocal music) and the early music revival of the 20th century, as well as performance practice, music reception, pop music studies, and video game music. On the library side of things, I am interested in taxonomies/folksonomies, music user services, and music reference. In my spare time, I enjoy singing, cooking/baking, and I'm an avid player of video games and board games.


My role here at NIU is to help you with your music research needs. As well as being your librarian, I'm a member of the tenure-track faculty, performing research and publishing in my own right. You can count on me to be a professional ally! Feel free to stop by and chat with me in the music library - right now I even have some homemade chocolate chip cookies to tempt you in.

Good article on staying current

My colleague at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Kirstin Dougan, wrote an informative article on staying current with news and developments in higher education, libraries, music and arts, and technology. I recommend it to anyone who would like some tips on where to begin.

Here is the citation:

Dougan, Kirstin. "Keeping Score (Keeping Up and Keeping Track)." Music Reference Services Quarterly 11, no. 2 (2008): 131-42.

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