Ann Shaffer joined the University of Oregon Libraries faculty in 2011.  She is the library subject specialist for music and dance, providing research assistance and classroom instruction sessions about library resources in those disciplines, managing the Knight Library’s music and dance collections, and overseeing all library purchases of music and dance materials.  She is also the lead music cataloger, creating catalog records for music scores and recordings, and is the head of the Knight Library Music Team, an interdepartmental working group that coordinates all of Knight Library’s music-related functions.  In addition to her role as librarian, Shaffer also teaches the core graduate course MUS 611, Research Methods in Music.

Shaffer is a member of the Music Library Association and its Pacific Northwest chapter, the International Association of Music Libraries, the Music OCLC Users Group, the Oregon Library Association, and the Viola da Gamba Society of America.  Since 2012, she has served on EBSCO Publishing’s Music Advisory Board.  She has presented at the annual conferences of MLA and OLA, and has published in Notes, the peer-reviewed journal of the Music Library Association.

Shaffer earned her master’s degrees in musicology and library science from Indiana University, where she also completed coursework towards a PhD in musicology with a minor in ethnomusicology.  Her research interests include gender and exoticism, dance in film, and ecomusicology.  She has presented her musicological work at national conferences, including the International Association for the Study of Popular Music US chapter meeting and the Experience Music Project Pop Conference, and was a regular reviewer for the Archives of African American Music and Culture’s monthly blog Black Grooves from 2008 to 2010.  She earned her BA in music and medieval studies at Smith College, where she wrote an undergraduate thesis on editing and performance practice of the polyphonic pieces in the Codex Calixtinus.

As a performer, Shaffer plays viola da gamba and cello, and has served as a guest artist with the Salem Chamber Orchestra.  She has also studied a variety of ethnic dance forms, with a focus on West African dance, flamenco, and Middle Eastern dance.  She teaches and performs throughout the Willamette Valley as a member of Troupe Tribalation and the Middle Eastern Dance Guild of Eugene.