Welcome to the Whittaker Library ... Meet Twittaker!

After a recent library display, our library mascot Twittaker decided to take charge of the exhibits.  Here's what happened ...
Twittaker reports that his 'students' were very attentive, and learned a lot about the library.  (He showed them our shiny new library catalogue, too, but we didn't catch them searching it ...)

Attend a free conference? Research Conference: Collecting Performance by Julie Duffy

We heard about this fascinating conference via email today.  It's free, and it's in Edinburgh's Scottish National Gallery this Saturday.  

How do you archive contemporary performances? If you sign up to this conference, there's every chance you'll get plenty of inspiration, and quite a few answers!

 Eventbrite booking form

All Celts Together: Introducing the Welsh Music Archive!

Our Welsh colleagues have been sharing information about the Welsh Music Archive, so we thought we'd share this with our own readers:-

"You may be interested in our latest blog on Launching the Welsh Music Archive at the National Library of Wales.  At a special ceremony on Friday, 22 September, The National Library of Wales launched its Welsh Music Archive Programme in the presence of the folk music expert and Library benefactor, Phyllis Kinney...

"Here's a blogpost about it:- http://www.llgc.org.uk/blog/?p=15813

"The National Library of Wales not only preserves  the earliest written music from Wales, but also collects  the latest compositions and performances by our contemporary musicians. It is a growing resource; material is added regularly to our musical collections. The collection includes works by internationally renowned classical Welsh composers such as Grace Williams, Daniel Jones, Alun Hoddinott and William Mathias.

"And now there are brand new pages on the website for further information on The Welsh Music Archive, and also WelshTraditional Music "

Margaret Jones has also written a blogpost about the Welsh Music Archive for our professional association, the UK and Ireland branch of the International Association of Music Libraries.  You can read this here. 

So, that's Welsh music fairly and squarely on the map!  A very positive development.

Twittaker's Whittaker Library Update

The final day of our RCS staff Learning and Teaching Conference saw a variety of updates from different departments. Information Services took their turn after lunch. We thought we'd just share with our readers some of the library highlights.

The All-Singing,All-Dancing Catalogue

We have a shiny new catalogue! Catherine demonstrated it, and showed colleagues the magnificent capabilities of Catalogue Plus, which searches online resources as well as books, music and other resources on shelves. It has to be said that the catalogue now looks much better - but the differences may take a little getting used to, so please do ask for help if you can't find something that you were sure is in stock!

• Explore the new catalogue here (click on the link)

We'd also like to remind Conservatoire students and colleagues about the library's Portal pages - find us under Information Services – you'll find library guides, copyright info, referencing, effective learning guides, offsite access guides, and more.

Help with introducing suitable online resources

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Whittaker Library staff do library tours (orientation), and talk to first years about catalogue and e-resources. In both cases, we can only give a quick overview, to avoid information overload. Little and often is better than one big demo and then no more. We're very happy to offer more help at point of need eg first assignment, first essay etc. Ask us! 
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Pedagogically – we're happy to do demos, but we also embrace active or collaborative learning. For example, we're happy to meet classes in an IT lab, or devise paired exercises looking up learning resources on students' own mobile devices. And we’re open to suggestions for other ways of getting info across in a flipped classroom kind of way.

Referencing - The Effective Learning team is available three times a week, Tues 12-2, Weds 12-2 and Fri 4-6). The team's very useful handouts are on Portal – on the library pages. Additionally, the librarians are happy to help with referencing queries if the Effective Learning team aren’t around. We can talk about referencing to individuals or groups as required. Ask us!
 

Bibliographic Citation Software - A WARNING!  Have you been collecting your references on the RefMe software?  It was easy and accessible to use, so lots of people adopted it.  However, not long ago, it was absorbed into CiteThisForMe.  Now, the choice is this: pay a subscription, or you can only keep your references for one week. And then it's gone.  [Pause to let that sink in - it's a scary thought!]

Mendeley and Zotero are reliable and long-established resources, and you can use them for free.  RCS students and colleagues are welcome to speak to us if you'd like help getting started.

Subject Queries -  The library has three Performing Arts Librarians, with different specialisms. Please do get in touch directly or send a message to library@rcs.ac.uk if you have a general query.

Manchester Percussionist Jan Bradley Launches Website

The Whittaker Library has just received notification of a new percussion website, launched by Jan Bradley. The website contains information about all his music for percussion (and other instruments).  He tells us that,

"The launch of this website coincides with the publishing of a number of works, some which I wrote for my percussion quartet 4-MALITY, which have not been available before now."

Why not take a look?  An easy website address to remember, http://www.janbradley.co.uk/

Learning and Teaching Conference - Keep the Inspiration Flowing!

Colleagues at our RCS Learning and Teaching Conference - now you're inspired and fired up to go, why not borrow some of our learning and teaching resources from the library?  Here's what comes up in our catalogue under "Teaching AND Learning" (click here).

And here are a couple of podcasts by the inspirational "Real David Cameron":- 

• The ‘Real’ David Cameron on education in Scotland and how to improve assessment through trust

• Will the real David Cameron please stand up?

   

 

See JSTOR? You need a MyJSTOR account too! Here's how ...

The Whittaker Library subscribes to the Music package of JSTOR. Sometimes you need to read other articles, though. How to access them, when we don't subscribe to them?  

NOT a problem!  With a free MyJSTOR account, you can read items online.  You can’t download pdfs (but you can make screenshots and save them to a document!).

This is a VERY quick YouTube telling people how to set up a MyJSTOR account.  http://tinyurl.com/SetUpMyJSTORaccount  
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Music at Boarding School? We have unique insights!

Karen wrote a blogpost for the Eighteenth-Century Arts Research Network (EAERN) website, about the music borrowed from St Andrews University LIbrary by one particular borrower and her daughters in the early nineteenth century. You've read Vanity Fair?  Now read about the musical habits of real people in a small university town!

Mrs Bertram's Music Borrowing: Reading Between the Lines

Our New Library Catalogue - Test Your Knowledge!

https://rcs.koha-ptfs.co.uk

Welcome to our new library catalogue. We hope you'll enjoy exploring it! Here's a chance to test your knowledge ...


Some of the following statements are correct, but not all of them. Which are which?

• The catalogue has all music, recordings, books and e-books
• Catalogue Plus finds all electronic journal articles, database entries (eg Oxford Music), and streamed music (eg Naxos)
• All books in the library have been digitised and the catalogue will find anything inside them.
• Someone else in the department collates all our reading lists.
• RCS teachers can give their reading lists to the librarians, to be uploaded on the library system.
• My fairy godmother deals with my reading lists.

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Clue:- There are three truths, and three untruths!

https://www.rcs.ac.uk/
https://rcs.koha-ptfs.co.uk

RCS Alumnus Simon McKerrell edits collection of essays on Music as Multimodal Discourse

Simon McKerrell studied for his PhD here at RCS some years ago, so we were delighted to see he is rapidly building up an admirable series of publications.

The Whittaker Library has just ordered one of his recent books!  You can read the opening chapter of Music as Multimodal Discourse on his blog, here:- http://pipersimon.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/new-book-out-music-as-multimodal.html

It won't be long before our staff and students can read the whole thing - keep an eye on our library catalogue's new books display, here:- https://rcs.koha-ptfs.co.uk/cgi-bin/koha/opac-main.pl (scroll down)

Have You Come Across the Theatre, Dance and Performance Training Blog?

Stephanie Arsoska is a theatre maker and facilitator living in Scotland. She is currently studying towards an MEd in Teaching and Learning in the Performing Arts at the Royal Conservatoire Scotland.  We were excited to find that she has published a blogpost for the Theatre, Dance and Performance Training Blog; it's great to see our performing artists producing quality written work for all to see, so we thought we'd share the link here, too:-

"Training as a Ground for Creating Community", by Stephanie Arsoska, 4 Sept.2017

• Theatre, Dance and Performance Training Blog (homepage)

Is your Orchestra in the Association of British Orchestras? An Opportunity ...

 Orchestral Manager? Or Similar ...

We have just heard about a career development opportunity for some lucky people working with ABO orchestras.  If you're in that happy position, read on ... but hurry! 

"Find Your Way - apply now!

Applications are now open for Find Your Way, an annual programme of sector-specific mentoring and placements for senior and emerging managers in ABO member organisations.

The ABO is looking for 6 participants who have ambitions for orchestral leadership. You should have at least five years’ paid work experience in the orchestral/classical music/arts sector. In the cohort of 6 there will also be one place for an orchestral musician who has aspirations to develop their career in management.

For further details and to apply click here. The deadline for applications is Monday 18 September."

If you would like to know more about ABO, please visit the ABO website, here:- 

http://abo.org.uk/