Want to Know More about Robert Burns and Scottish Songs?

You may know of Burns' contribution to the six-volume The Scots Musical Museum.  This collection has been reprinted more than once since first publication!

There's now a new, authoritative edition combining the original text with new scholarly commentary.
University of Glasgow Professor Murray Pittock's edition of The Scots Musical Museum is contained in vols.2 and 3 of The Oxford Edition of the Works of Robert Burns.  (Vol.2 is the tunes, and vol.3 the commentary.)  

We've also got Donald Low's slightly older reprint, which can be borrowed by staff and students for short loan, and William Stenhouse's 1853 Illustrations of the lyric poetry and music of Scotland.

That one's in our Special Collections - because it's special!

Sold Out! Digital Delius (London, 1 October)

Why share details of a seminar that's sold out?  Well, you never know if there might be a last-minute cancellation!  So we're sharing details of this seminar at the British Library, just in case anyone might be particularly interested.  Anything touching on the digital humanities has a very current resonance, after all.

"How can technology help people access and understand music manuscripts?

"This event has been rescheduled from 16 July.

"Join us for the launch of a new digital exhibition showcasing the music of British-born composer Frederick Delius (1862–1934), including a live performance by the Villiers String Quartet."

 "Daniel Grimley, Joanna Bullivant and representatives from the University of Oxford’s e-Research Centre present an overview of the AHRC-funded project and outline how technologies they have developed can enrich engagement with musical sources and give an insight into the creative process. "

 Monday 1 October, 13:00 - 18:00
Foyle Visitor and Learning Centre
The British Library
96 Euston Road
London
NW1 2DB

And if you're lucky enough to get a ticket ... it's free!

Find out more here:- https://www.bl.uk/events/digital-delius-unlocking-digitised-music-manuscripts 

Follow us in Real Time

We haven't blogged much this summer. But we've moved books round, catalogued a ton of stuff, updated a stack of library guides (find them on the library pages of the Conservatoire Portal) ... 

And we've been to conferences and (of course) taken it in turns to have holidays.  

Follow us on Twitter @WhittakerLib or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/gillies.whittaker

We're still here!  Keep in touch. 

Spotting Fake News

Here's a quick story!  Once upon a time there was an English musician who studied in Italy in his youth and ended up in Scotland. Two hundred years later, there are scores  by both the English-turned-Scotsman, and by his Italian tutor, in a university library.  

End of story. Shame, isn't it?!

Did you imagine the Brit might have deposited not only his own books but also the tutor's publications in the library?  Or did someone else deposit (or decide to keep) the Brit's books in the library because he was a popular composer?  Or did the Brit's copies of the Italian's scores end up in the secondhand market and then find their way to the library later?  There could be a wonderful detective story in this!

Before you make any assumptions, look at the evidence.  At the moment, the only verifiable truths in this story are in the first paragraph above.  No documents have, or can yet, be cited as evidence - all the rest is guesswork. Music wasn't taught in universities for several decades after the Brit died, and there's nothing to suggest he had any other involvement with the university. He was a music teacher and composer, not a scientist, lawyer or theologian.

So the moral of the tale? Don't jump to conclusions.  Check your facts.  And make sure you reference any reliable sources for the evidence you do have! 



Spotting Fake News (be a good scholar) on Biteable.

RCS staff and students - set up alerts for new journal articles etc

Learn to set up online alerts on Biteable.

Recent research showed that students like to find out more about online resources available to them, but - crucially - they like to learn in small, bite-sized chunks, and they particularly like animated videos.  Biteable offers a good solution - conveniently short videos, which don't take too long to customise.

So, even if you only have a few minutes while waiting for a train, or in between family commitments, you can still learn something new that might be useful for your coursework!  This one tells you about setting up email alerts to newly published journal articles on your chosen topic.  Nifty, eh?

Writing a Research Proposal

Faced with writing a research proposal for the first time, it's easy to feel apprehensive.  This blogpost is not intended to replace any advice you're given by teaching staff, but we can offer a few helpful general comments.  

We realise you could be contemplating research on a vast variety of topics, from many different disciplines.  Our students here at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland are creative artists in some aspect of music, drama, dance, film or television, and much of our research is practice-based.  (This may be very different from the research that a scientist, mathematician, lawyer or linguist might undertake!)
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An Outline for a Practice-Based Research Project Proposal

The following outline was recommended for a recent RCS Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching.  Candidates were advised to aim for a proposal with a word-length of about 1000 words:-

1. Overview
2. Research Context
3. Professional Aims
4. Research Question/Questions
5. Methodology
6. Outcomes

 Check with teaching staff to see if there are particular things they're looking out for.  Also, see if you should write it in the first person (eg, "I propose to find out ...") or the more formal third person (eg, "It is proposed to establish...".)   Perhaps you can find a doctoral student or recent PhD graduate willing to show you how they wrote their own research proposal.
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Books and Articles about Writing a Research Proposal

Your library has plenty of literature to help you with your task.  Maybe you just want to be sure that you haven't missed out something vital.  Or need a bit more guidance about structuring your report. Start with the library catalogue.   
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Catalogue or Catalogue Plus?

•  Click here for the link to the Whittaker Library Catalogue

1. You can search books and e-books in the simple catalogue search-box
2. Or you can click the "Search Catalogue Plus" button BENEATH the search box, and then type in your search-terms. This will search all the online resources that we subscribe to.

Typing words in the search-box can be made more efficient by using some clever search tricks. Here's how we did our initial search:-

Writing AND "Research proposal"

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Combining terms with AND is a good way of ensuring relevant results.  Also, if you want words to be adjacent or very close together, quotation marks do the trick.  Here, we've combined two different concepts. You don't just want to read someone else's "research proposal" - you want to know about writing your own. Try the above search-string in the Catalogue, and then using Catalogue Plus - you'll see how many more results you can get with Catalogue Plus!

Another good search to try is this one (in fact, you might find enough here in a simple library catalogue search, to answer all your initial questions!) :-

Research methodology

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Combining search terms

By the way, typing the word AND in block capitals is one of three search strategies that work in this way.  There's also OR, where you would be happy with either of two or more terms.  Lastly, you can exclude concepts with NOT.  This is useful if you know you do not want to retrieve material on a particular sub-category.  (AND, OR and NOT are called Boolean operators.  Too much information?!)

Happy searching, and happy research proposal writing! Good luck!