ABSTRACT
The varied range of music libraries in the United Kingdom makes a coherent overview in any period challenging. This leaves music libraries open to an equally wide variety of influences and trends, whether in local government, national government, education, technological developments or cooperative ventures. In the public library sector, more radical events left their mark. In 1991 the government announced a thorough-going review of local government, in which a radical overhaul of local authorities was proposed. The Library and information plan for music (Music LIP) was published in the summer of 1993. A Music LIP Development Group continued to press for progress, but disappointment was hard to dispel, not least as other subject plans developed and LIPs were gaining acceptance as models for the future. The inter-library loan of single scores was in theory enormously aided by the existence of the extensive music collections at the British Library Document Supply Centre.
