Who We Are


CD HotList is a music recommendation service for librarians, from librarians. Our group of professional librarians provides timely reviews of new CD releases of interest to libraries. The information is presented in a simple and fun way, helping to make the ordering process for librarians faster and easier. Our staff of contributors are librarians and music fans.

 

Editor:

Rick Anderson has worked in libraries since 1988, and has been an active musician for most of his life, playing in symphony orchestras, jazz combos, dance bands, fife-and-drum companies, bluegrass bands and Celtic groups. He edits the Sound Recording Reviews column for Notes (the quarterly journal of the Music Library Association) and is a regular contributor to the All-Music Guide. He began publishing CD HotList: New Releases for Libraries in 1999.

 

Contributing Reviewers:

Steve Alleman is Collection Management Librarian at the University of New Orleans. He is a lifelong resident of New Orleans, and he has been playing guitar since 1964. A frequent presenter at conferences of the Popular Culture Association, he has contributed to local music publications and to the book Living on a Thin Line: Crossing Aesthetic Borders with the Kinks (Rock 'n' Roll Research Press, 2003).

Gene Hyde is Appalachian Collection and Reference/Instruction Librarian at Radford University. He has an MA in Appalachian Studies and a MS in Information Sciences, and served as Curator of the John Quincy Wolf Folklore Collection at Lyon College before returning to Appalachia to work at Radford. He has been a free-lance music reviewer and columnist for nearly two decades, writing about jazz, folk, and rock for a half-dozen publications.

Peter Szabo has been the music librarian at Ohio Wesleyan University since 2003, managing a branch library of about 15,000 items. He completed an M.L.S. at the University at Buffalo in 2003 and has two degrees in music (Rutgers University and Eastern Illinois University). He has a wide variety of musical tastes and cultivates an extensive personal collection of recordings that ranges from Mozart to Iron Maiden.

Jeff Wanser is the Coordinator of Collection Development at the Hiram College (Ohio) Library, and an adjunct faculty member in the Dept. of Sociology/Anthropology. He also serves as the music cataloger. A rock and doo-wop fan since watching American Bandstand at the age of five, he later expanded his interests to include classical and folk music, blues, and jazz. He reviews for Choice and other publications, and has written encyclopedia articles on R&B and big band musicians.

Thomas Bell is Performing Arts Librarian at Kansas State University. He studied music at the University of California, Santa Barbara and at the Britten - Pears School in Aldeburgh, England. He studied Information Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. He has contributed music reviews to the webzine, Spacelab: Reinventing the Future. He created and now teaches a music history course, "Underground Architects of Modern Pop Music." Artistically, he performs with early music ensembles and sometimes collaborates on experimental electro-chamber rock projects.

Marci Cohen is a multimedia librarian at Northbrook (IL) Public Library, where she selects the rock and pop CDs. She has been a music journalist for over 20 years, most significantly for the defunct B-Side Magazine, where she was senior staff writer. She finds it gratifying every time the Nick Cave or Ramones CDs circulate at her library.

Michael Bonnard is currently Special Formats Catalog Librarian at Georgia College & State University. He has a lengthy history with music cataloging and music collections beginning in 1985 as a paraprofessional at Indiana University's Music Library. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance and a Master of Library Science with a specialization in music librarianship. He is an avid music fan, collecting recordings since he was still in diapers and loves listening to a wide array of genres from all periods of music history as well as popular music and jazz.

Polly Bonnett is the Assistant Director of Library Services at the Sierra Madre (CA) Public Library. She currently selects music for the library collection and is constantly amazed at how gratifying this job is. A music fan since being introduced to Elvis at the age of five (in 1980) and a child of the MTV generation, her music pursuits and interests are wide-ranging however there is a special love for indie-rock and soul music. She plays guitar and believes you can live the rock n' roll dream in your everyday life. Living in the Los Angeles area, she is gratefully exposed to an endless opportunity to witness great live music…and takes advantage of it.

Chris Durman is the Music Librarian for Public Services at the University of Tennessee Libraries. A long-time East Tennessee resident, Chris fell into playing folk and bluegrass music when members of his high-school rock band left to attend separate colleges. He has played semi-professionally for over twenty years and has worked in libraries for just under twenty. He completed his MS in Information Science while working as a full-time staff member of the University of Tennessee Music Library. Although appreciative of almost every form of music, he continues to nurture a particular fascination with American folk and popular music.