We are excited to announce that the Royal Academy of Dance is our newest Contributing library. To tell us more about the organisation, the library and its serial collection, we invited Carlos Garcia Jane, Assistant Librarian, to write a few words.
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The Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) is one of the world’s most influential dance education organisations. Founded in 1920 to set standards for dance teaching within the UK, today we have a presence in 84 countries, with 36 offices and around 14,000 members worldwide. We count more than 1,000 students in our teacher training programmes and more than a quarter of a million students are being examined on our syllabi. Our membership is supported through the knowledge and expertise of RAD’s highly qualified staff and through conferences, workshops, training courses and summer schools. The Faculty of Education is dedicated to meeting the needs of our current and future dance teachers by providing dance teacher education programmes and qualifications. Our exams are recognised by Ofqual and contribute to UCAS points. The RAD’s patron is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
The Royal Academy of Dance, Battersea, London. (© Royal Academy of Dance.)
The Philip Richardson Library houses one of the largest specialist dance collections in the UK. Based at the RAD Headquarters in Battersea, London, we welcome visitors from around the world as well as RAD members, friends, students and staff. The open access collections include books, CDs, DVDs, conference proceedings, resource packs and Benesh Movement Notation Scores. The dance collection is supplemented by resources in the related fields of pedagogy, music, anatomy and physiology. Materials in the archives and special collections include rare books, theatre programmes, photographs, costume designs, pictures and artifacts, as well as audio-visual materials and paper-based documents and correspondence.
Our expanding collection of serials contains over 170 individual titles, 30 of which are print subscriptions, alongside online resources and databases. The serials collection focuses on dance history and criticism, choreography, dance education and training, and dance medicine and science. The collection includes a complete run of the Dance Gazette, a highly-respected international dance publication, produced by the Royal Academy of Dance since 1930. Among other important serial titles, our collection also features runs of Dancing Times, Dance Magazine, and Dance & Dancers.
Our collection will be beneficial to students, researchers and academic interested in ballet, dance and related topics. Find more information about our collections and activities on our website, our library catalogue, or follow us on twitter @RADLibrary. To arrange a visit contact us on library@rad.org.uk or 02073268032.
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SUNCAT would very much like to thank Carlos for introducing the library and its journal collection. If you would like to write a post on your SUNCAT Contributing Library and its serials collections please contact us at suncat@ed.ac.uk.