The best libraries manage to be simultaneously timeless and up-to-the-minute, a balancing act that the Frost School of Music’s Marta and Austin Weeks Music Library fulfills in every way. The $9.9 million facility opened in 2005 (primarily funded by an $8 million donation from its namesake benefactors), offering a broad and impressive range of artifacts and top-line recording, listening, and network facilities – a world-class student resource.
“When Weeks was built, it was with an emphasis on embracing technology,” said director Sara Manus. “We are working to keep up with that as we go forward. The library offers access to music-production software, and in the last five or six years, we’ve added two state-of-the-art production booths where students can record. We anticipate continuing to keep abreast of new trends, building on what came before us.”
Weeks Library marked its 20th anniversary on Thursday with a celebratory event featuring a portrait unveiling that honors former head librarian Nancy Zavac, one of the most important figures in its history. Zavac worked for 40 years at Weeks and its predecessor, the Alfred Pick Music Library, before retiring in 2018.
Zavac began her career in 1978 while pursuing her master’s degree at the University of Miami, and Manus said she deserves most of the credit for the depth of the library’s archival collections. She was also a key player in designing Weeks to maximize its effectiveness.
Zavac and her husband Jeff (a saxophonist and Frost School alumnus) also performed on the April 10 program.
“I grew up in a Polish family, so of course I learned accordion,” Zavac said with a laugh. “My first professional year at Miami, I made $11,000, which I thought was fantastic. I thought playing accordion with my husband on saxophone would be more fun than making remarks.”
The old Pick Library building (now the Frost School administration building, where Dean Shelton G. Berg’s office is located) has a unique and intriguing in-the-round design typical of Miami’s mid-century modern style. But that became a problem as the library’s archive outgrew the building’s storage capacities. Frost Dean Emeritus Bill Hipp described Pick as “antiquated” and cramped. He described those shortcomings in a meeting with the Weeks.
“At the end of that meeting, Marta informed us in her typically understated style that she and Austin had decided to contribute $8 million to construct the new music library,” Hipp said. “What a moment that was!”
Nowadays, the music library’s permanent collection includes more than 40,000 books, 73,000 scores, 70,000 recordings, and 4,200 videos, as well as theses written by Frost School graduates. Where different parts of the music collection were once scattered in separate libraries across campus, the 22,500-square-foot Weeks building is big enough to hold everything in one place.
Among Weeks’ more notable special-collection artifacts are the Camner Family Music Collection of rare scores; the Frank Cooper Music Facsimile Collection’s high-quality manuscript reproductions; and the Larry Taylor-Billy Matthews Musical Theatre Archive, which is heavy on Broadway materials.
Twelve years ago, Weeks’ reputation was strong enough that it helped draw Dr. Charles Eckman, the University of Miami’s Dean and University Librarian, to Coral Gables in 2013 after stints at Simon Fraser University in Canada and UC Berkeley in California.
“It’s a very impressive library,” said Eckman. “The setting is beautiful, lovingly overseen, and the two sound production booths have been so popular that there are plans for a third. The new tech features get a lot of attention, but we’re also thrilled with the library’s special collections. We aspire to keep those growing. They’re a key pillar.”
