FROM THE CHAIRMAN

Amongst the long-term aims of BIOS, which its Council keeps under review, are the continuing provision for the British Organ Archive and National Pipe Organ Register, and the general desire to give BIOS as widely acknowledged a status and thus authority as possible. To keep members informed of current thinking, I would like to outline some of Council's ideas with respect to the Royal College of Organists' project to move its operations to Birmingham, in a totally refurbished and spectacular listed building, a unique original railway terminal of the 1830s.
   The RCO, for the second time in its recent history, has a major problem of needing to find suitable accommodation for its many activities, including educational programmes and its ever-growing and distinguished library. Careful forward planning, not least through certain BIOS officers who are themselves members of the RCO, has taken into account the College's present and future library, with its books, scores and records. This has been done with a view to a new catalogue, new storage-allowance, and new conventions for the library's use. Meanwhile, barely a mile away in the City Libraries, the British Organ Archive is also gradually growing, and will continue to do so: already, important archival material has to be stored elsewhere, and we are (as BIOS Information Officer puts it) victims of our very success.
   So when the opportunity arose to discuss the possibility of the BOA joining the RCO Library in its planned new premises, keeping its own identity in all respects while becoming an important part of what will inevitably become a 'British Organ Studies Centre', Council members responded with great interest. It would be a question of moving the BOA from one Birmingham library to another, along with NPOR, miscellaneous artifacts, etc. We are aware of possible problems as we are too of undoubted benefits, and I think I can assure members that Council is constantly bearing in mind not only the formalities and cost but the 'philosophy' of any such collaboration. The expected acceptance by the funding sources of the RCO's application, in which are named both BIOS and the University of Central England (through whom the library will be re-organized), will mean that we can move to the next stage of proposals.
   These remarks are provisional and preliminary, but I appreciate the chance to put on record where we are with the proposals at the present time. We shall continue to report the latest developments at the earliest opportunity. It is likely that, since the hugely advantageous collaboration with RCO might incur some cost to BIOS, Council may have to find appropriate funding.

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