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A piece of inauguration history at St. Olaf

By Mara Kumagai Fink '11
March 24, 2009

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Cook
When Conor Cook '09 decided to do his music history project on the piece Air and Simple Gifts, written by John Williams for President Barack Obama's inauguration in January, he didn't suspect he'd be contributing to history.

But he was. Williams' composition was so new that Cook had to request the library order it, and when the time came to catalog the piece, St. Olaf music catalog librarian Kathy Blough realized that there was no listing for it yet on WorldCat.org.

St. Olaf College became the first school to catalog the piece on WorldCat.org, the world's largest online resource for searching library content in the United States and 16 other countries. Blough describes it as the "Amazon.com of libraries."

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"I felt like I was contributing to history in a little tiny way because of the significance of the inauguration and because the inauguration was so special personally for me," Blough says. "It meant a lot."

Cook says that although he didn't realize the significance at the time, he's happy to add another Williams piece to the St. Olaf collection for future students to use. "I'm delighted that I helped to incorporate some more of John Williams' music into the fabric of the music here," he says. "Most of Williams' music is that big orchestral sound, so I like the idea of having an intimate chamber piece that will be accessible to more performers."

Contact Kari VanDerVeen at 507-786-3970 or vanderve@stolaf.edu.