A. Ralph Papakhian (December 28, 1948 – January 14, 2010) was Head of Technical Services in the
IU William & Gayle Cook Music Library. In a recent volume of essays published in his honor, Ralph was called “the most prominent music cataloger of the last 30 years.” Beginning in the late 1970s, he taught classes and supervised internships for library students enrolled in the music specialization program offered by IU’s School of Library and Information Science and the Jacobs School of Music. Through that program and the summer cataloging workshops initiated in the mid-1990s, Ralph trained hundreds of music catalogers, instilling in each the importance of accuracy, curiosity, and intellectual rigor.
In honor of Ralph’s pioneering work in music librarianship, the band has established the Ralph Papakhian Library Internship to provide modest support to an IU student who will work with the BCB’s extensive music library.
Highlights of Ralph Papakhian’s career:
- Awarded the Music Library Association (MLA) Citation Award, the Association’s highest honor (2008)
- First winner of the MLA Special Achievement Award (1992; named in his honor in 2011)
- Recipient of the MLA Richard S. Hill Award for best article on music librarianship (1983 and 2002)
- Founding member of the Music OCLC Users Group (MOUG) (1978)
- Recipient of the MOUG Distinguished Service Award (2005)
- Established MLA-L as the first e-mail distribution list on the Indiana University LISTSERV server (1990)
- Promoted to Full Librarian (1985)
- President of the IU Chapter of the American Federation of Teachers