A new database for British musical festival repertoire, 1695-1940

MUSICAL FESTIVALS DATABASE

This announcement has just been shared with music librarians world-wide.  If you're interested in the history of musical performance and repertoires, then a database of historical music festivals might be right up your street!  Extending from 1695 to 1940, it offers a wealth of information from over 250 years.

Let's quote from the announcement we've just received,

Announcing the Public Launch of the Musical Festivals Database (with apologies for cross-posting)

The Musical Festivals Database (MFD; www.musicalfestivals.org) is now launched! The MFD is a fully-searchable index of programs, personnel, ensembles and venues of musical festivals held in Great Britain between 1695 and 1940. As of May 15, 2017, the MFD contains searchable records for over 500 festivals. These records include complete programs for major festivals such as Birmingham, the Handel Festivals at the Crystal Palace, Leeds, Norwich, and the Three Choirs Festivals. Through searching the MFD, one can trace the dissemination of repertoire throughout Great Britain, track how a singer’s or performer’s repertoire changed over time, see the changes in ensemble size and makeup, or even gauge the popularity of a specific performer, composer, or composition. 

We invite you to explore the site and browse for your favorite performers and compositions. In the next few weeks, we will discuss ways we have used the MFD in classes on our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/MusicalFestivalsDatabase/). In the meantime, feel free to share any comments you have about the site and the information contained within it with us!

Technical: The MFD is an open-access research tool, freely available to all users. It is hosted by the Oberlin College Library, and was created and is supported in collaboration of the Oberlin College & Conservatory Office of Sponsored Programs, Duke University’s Digital Scholarship Services, the Five Colleges of Ohio, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The MFD was created by Charles Edward McGuire of Oberlin College & Conservatory and Chris Borgmeyer of Crooked River Designs. Undergraduate research assistants at Oberlin and graduate students at Duke completed much of the data entry for the MFD. 

The Aria Database 

While we're talking about databases, here's a really useful searchable database listing opera arias along with English translations - the Aria Database, boasting 1288 Arias - 177 Operas - 65 Composers - 389 Translations - 1027 Aria Texts - and 223 MIDIs  ...

http://www.aria-database.com/index.html

.

Scottish musicians might also be interested in a brief history of the very first Edinburgh Musical Festival - NOT the festival that you know and love today, but one that was a brave new attempt way back in 1815 ... 'The First Edinburgh Musical Festival: 'Serious and magnificent entertainment', or 'A combination of harmonious and discordant notes'?' / Karen McAulay, Brio, vol.53 no.1, 35-46
 

What Will You Be Learning During Independent Learning Week?

Then (the old Athenaeum Library)

And now (the Whittaker Library)

Here at the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, we can't predict how busy it might be in the library next week.  It's our Independent Learning Week - will students be learning independently in the library, or elsewhere?!  (Staff might be doing some independent learning, practising or writing, too. We know someone who is!)

Staff and students are reminded that we're still open, and if you're not coming into the Conservatoire, you can still access virtually all our electronic resources. If you're off-campus, then you usually need to select RCS from a range of institutions, before using your usual staff/student login.

Everything - databases, e-journals, and e-books - is available via our library website, here.  Additionally, many e-books are catalogued into the main catalogue system, so you'll find them just by checking the catalogue.  Find the book, click on the link and use the login procedure outlined above, and you're off. Easy-peasy.

If you're puzzled about any RCS e-resource, or struggling to find resources for a vital piece of work, students and staff are warmly encouraged to contact the library.

• Library website:    https://www.rcs.ac.uk/about_us/libraryandit/ 
• Library catalogue: http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/rcs/
• Did you know we have Library Chat facilities on the catalogue homepage?  We man it at peak times - give it a try!

Great News - Colonial Music Databases back up and running

We're sharing this news because the Colonial Music Institute hosts a lot of really useful information, if you're interested in historic tunebooks.  For a while their databases were unavailable, but we heard this week that they're now restored to working order.

Quoting from the horse's mouth ...

Great news!  5 of 6 databases are now back up. They are best found via: https://www.colonialmusic.org/colonial-music-resources.html  It has been nearly 6 months since these databases were taken down by online hacking, such a senseless loss.  But now they are back up, these five:-

• Early American Songsters, 1734-1820: An Index
• Dance Figures Index: English Country Dances, 1651-1827
• Dance Figures Index: American Country Dances, 1730-1810
• The Dancing Master, 1651-1728: An Illustrated Compendium
• Early American Secular Music and Its European Sources, 1589-1839: An Index
• And the last, The Performing Arts in Early American Newspapers, 1690-1783 should be up again soon.

It's a shame we've been without these powerful academic tools, but thank goodness (and the hard-working folks at the Country Dance and Song Society!) they're back.

Who, What, Where, When? The Concert Programmes Database

Here's another useful database for music historians!  Have you looked at the Concert Programmes Database?

You'll be astonished what's there.

http://www.concertprogrammes.org.uk/

Scottish Country Dance Database - could be useful!

We found this the other day:-

Scottish Country Dance Database

http://my.strathspey.org/dd/index/

 

 

This database looks potentially useful for anyone involved in the Scottish country dance scene.  Quoting from their homepage ...

 

"Overview

"This database aims to be a comprehensive resource for Scottish country dancers, dance teachers, and musicians. It brings together information on Scottish country dances, formations, musical recordings, Scottish country dance tunes, and the people behind all of those – all conveniently linked together for easy perusal.
"The database builds on the efforts of many people. Keith Napier and Peter Hastings pioneered the idea of indexing Scottish country dances and music. Alan Paterson started the project behind this database, compiling a very large repository of data and making it available to everybody. Eric Ferguson and Charles Upton, among others, have contributed cribs for dances. This web-based version was written by Anselm Lingnau, who is also hosting it on his server. Countless volunteers have helped organise, improve, and correct the data – an ongoing effort."  

 

World War One Accents and Dialects

If you're studying the Voice and Text modules at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, you may be interested to know about two web resources that the Library subscribes to.
 
Both are partially available on open public web access, but our subscription gets our members access to more of this quality material.
 

WWI Accents - on Scran database

 

You can find World War One accents on a Scottish web-resource called Scran.  There's a special page for WW1, and this link will take you to it.  (You'll have to login by selecting the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and then using your usual RCS login.)



 

WWI Accents on British Library Sounds website

You can find World War One accents on the British Library's 'British Library Sounds' database.  Go to the homepage and click on the link for Accents and Dialects.  (If you're off-campus, you'll have to login by selecting the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and then using your usual RCS login.) 

 

We are the very helpful Whittaker Library, here to help our staff and students access quality information for their teaching and learning.

It's a Voyage of Discovery at the Whittaker Library

Before too long, the Whittaker Library will incorporate a discovery layer (it's called a Full Text Finder) which will enable users to explore both physical resources and all our electronic databases, all at once.  This should make it very much easier to get the most out of what the library holds.

Just imagine - supposing you're doing the Scottish music degree, and you decide there are five electronic databases that just might have useful info for you.  Right now, you'd need to look at each resource separately.  In future, you can search the lot, all together.  Watch this space for the announcement that the discovery layer has gone live.

Meanwhile, there are still surprises ... did you know that you can look up:-

• Scottish music in the African American Music Reference
• Nova Scotia or Cape Breton material in American Song
• Archival Gaelic song in British Library Sounds
• Niel Gow in Oxford Music Online or in RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
• Strathspey or Ballads in SCRAN
• Scottish Music reported in times gone by, in Times Digital Archive
• Uist, Cape Breton, or Niel Gow, in The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online

. Why wait? Get exploring! 

We are the very helpful Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  

Musicians! RILM or JSTOR: Deciding Where to Start

Do you look at our Electronic Resources page and wonder where to start?  Do the acronyms and abbreviations bamboozle you?

Two of our most popular and useful resources for musicians are RILM and JSTOR.  There are two main differences, and once you understand those, you're better able to decide where to start!  

It's the difference between subject specific and multi-disciplinary; and the difference between full-text and abstract or indexing services.  Whatever you're consulting, you need to know what's in there.  (It's like knowing whether a shop will have the kind of merchandise you're looking for!)

RILM consists of abstracts (summaries) of scholarly writing on all kinds of musical subjects.  The abstract helps you decide if the article or book will be of use to you, and there are all the details of where to find it.  The Whittaker Library staff are here to help staff and students access the information they need for a teaching or essay assignment.  It's a subject-specific abstracting service. It provides directions towards the info you need, but it doesn't actually give you the full-text information.

JSTOR is a huge multi-disciplinary database of full-text articles.  Unlike RILM, it gives you full-text articles.  However, whilst universities subscribe to the whole database, we only subscribe to the music package.  On the other hand, if you find details of an article in another discipline, and it really looks relevant, then come and ask us.  We can try to obtain it from another library for you.

• RCS Whittaker Library Electronic Resources web-page

This blogpost is about a couple of our resources that musicians might find useful.  We could tell you about many more!  In due course we'll also share information about drama and dance resources, too.

We are the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, here to help our staff and students access the information they need to be effective creative artists.

Are You a Reflective Practitioner?

RILM to the Rescue!

We've been looking at our electronic databases to see what information you can access.  "Reflective practice" seemed a good place to start, so we searched RILM, a database for music abstracts.  Surprisingly, the first result was about reflective practice in dance, which just goes to show that sometimes you get more than you expected!

Find our subscription to RILM on the Whittaker Library's electronic resources pages. If you're a Royal Conservatoire of Scotland student or member of staff, you can gain access from anywhere, on campus or off-site.  If you're off-site, remember to pick the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland from the list of colleges and universities, then use your usual RCS login.

We are the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, here to assist our performing artist community with their teaching and learning information needs.

Instantly Find Literature on Reflective Practice with JSTOR

While you've been enjoying our atypical Scottish summer, and mindfully giving yourself a rest from scholarly routine, we hope you haven't forgotten this useful website - 

http://www.jstor.org/

JSTOR is a vast database of scholarly articles.  It has all but the most recent ones (because the journal publishers themselves want you to read their recent journals)!

We subscribe so our performing artists can find lots of information for their teaching and learning.  And their reflective practice.  Try a search - you'll be astounded how much you retrieve!  (We were.)

Suggestion: search Reflective practice

We are the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, here to help our community of performing artists with their teaching and learning information needs.

Jazz Course Leader Shares Enthusiasm for Jazz Books

The other day, we were chatting about the Whittaker Library's collection of books on jazz.  We have hundreds of them!  (Searching the word "jazz" as a keyword yields well over 400 books, and then there are the scores and recordings ...)

Tommy Smith, the leader of our Jazz BMus, asked us to produce a list of these books, and we're happy to share this with our blog-followers and performing jazz artists.

• Jazz Books in the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
• Jazz Printed Music
• Jazz CDs 

NEW! NEW! NEW!

Music Online: African American Music Reference 

When you look at the homepage of this Alexander Street Press resource, you'll immediately recognise lots of jazz names.  Give it a go!

Screenshot of African American Music Homepage

Just click here: Music Online: African American Music Reference 

We are the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, here to support teaching and learning amongst our performers and technicians. 

Times Digital Archive available to Royal Conservatoire of Scotland community

Staff and students at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland now have access to the excellent and very useful Times Digital Archive.

Covering The Times newspaper from 1785 to 2008, it's a fantastic resource, especially for performing artists looking for theatre, concert or film reviews.  If you're a member of staff or a student at the Royal Conservatoire, then here's the link:- CLICK HERE.

• Try looking up our former Principal, Philip Ledger, whose fame extended over many decades. 
• See what's been written about composer Gerald Finzi.
• Search for National Theatre of Scotland.
• Or,  just for fun, search for Harry Potter film. 

You'll also find the link on our Library and IT website, or via our Mahara page.

Trial of RILM Retrospective - find very old AND very new articles about music

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland subscribes to RILM already, offering music staff and students the best online way of sourcing articles and other writings about music.  It's a quality product - readers are warmly encouraged to explore its coverage.  Registered staff and students can access it anywhere, on any online device, using their Conservatoire login details.

Try an extended database online, on Conservatoire premises!

Now, however, there's more on offer!  We have a trial until 21st February, of RILM Retrospective, which offers a hugely extended dataset going back to 1899.  The trial searches both RILM and Retrospective simultaneously, but - unlike our subscription to the modern database, the trial can only be accessed on Royal Conservatoire of Scotland premises.  (This is because the trial requires our IP address range, rather than using individual readers' logins.)

IMPORTANT

Boxes down the left side of the screen enable you to refine your search.  To succeed in finding older material, the "Full text" option must NOT be checked.

Like this:                                        

Not like this:

Electronic Resources at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

This blogpost is unashamedly for our new students and staff at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland!

We're looking forward to coming to new first year classes to tell you about all the fab electronic stuff that we subscribe to on your behalf.  Journals, encyclopedias, databases, music streaming ... If you click on the grey link just below the blog title, you'll get to the Library and IT website, where you can see all the e-resources we offer.

If you can't wait, we have handy library leaflets to guide you.  Pick up a paper one, or get one electronically.

To go digital, first you need to sign up to Moodle.  Then sign up to Mahara - the part of our VLN that lets you make an e-portfolio, or access shared documents.

Find the Library Group, and you'll find our pages full of useful library info.  There's one about our electronic resources, and another one telling you how to access them when you're off-campus.

(And of course you've got us, your ever-helpful library staff, to advise you too.)

See you soon!

JSTOR to the Rescue! (B-listed Composers? No Problem!)

They were in a panic.

"We've got to give a talk ..."

Confidentiality prevents 'Whittaker' from revealing who the B-listed composers were.  Suffice to say, we checked JSTOR - the back-copy journal database - and the problem was sorted.  Instantly.*

The Whittaker Library subscribes to the JSTOR Music package.  Recommended!


* Big names are also covered.  And there's no harm in looking for the wee ones, either!

Artistic Research

Here's a website for the research scholars amongst us!

Research Lecturer Dr Anna Birch has drawn our attention to the Society for Artistic Research, and its new scholarly journal, the Journal for Artistic Research.

The main website is for the Journal for Artistic Research, where you will find Vol.1 (2011).  You'll find out more about the Society by clicking on the appropriate links.

You can also subscribe to the Newsletter, and participate in the Research Catalogue, which is described as an international database for artistic research.  More here ...

The site is heavy on text, light on images.  This JAR blog may be more user-friendly.

Digital Library: Electronic Stuff

 Ebooks - Kindles* - Streaming - E-ncyclopedias - Ejournals!

 

 

 

First year musicians, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
Electronic resources talk

by Dr Karen McAulay** 

 took place at 2 pm today, Stevenson Hall.

 

Did you miss it?  Slideshare version of my PowerPoint here.  (It'll be put on the Library Mahara Group as soon as possible.)

* We don't supply the Kindle, but you can use yours - click on the link to a helpful blogpost by Hannah, Library Queen of the Kindle

** All-singing, still not dancing Music and Academic Services Librarian 

• By the way, have you mislaid your link to Christina's Challenge?  Here it is again!

Music Streaming - good news for 2012

Classical Music Library

(Alexander Street Press)

Classical Music Library – one of the Whittaker Library’s music streaming services – has just notified us of a huge addition to their provision.  They’ve now got lots more EMI recordings.  Staff and students can stream recordings via our library website.  Why not take a look at what’s on offer?  Here’s our databases page. 

Subject: Major EMI content release into Classical Music Library and Music Online

I am pleased to announce that we released 1,409 albums (35,688 tracks) into Classical Music Library and Music Online today!  We have now released the remaining EMI material into Classical Music Library, adding to the already 22,000 tracks of EMI already in the database - over 50,000 tracks of EMI in total.

New content comes from EMI Classics, Angel Records, Capitol Catalog, and more.

Highlights include recordings by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Jussi Bjorling, Victoria De Los Angeles, Itzhak Perlman, Renata Scotto, Mstislav Rostropovich, London Symphony Orchestra, Taverner Choir, Maria Callas, Jon Vickers, Melos Ensemble, Pinchas Zuckerman, Borodin Quartet, Christoph Eschenbach, Elly Ameling, Trio Sonnerie,  Alban Berg Quartett, Chung Trio, John Ogdon, and more.

Also included in this release are hundreds of full length operas ... 

Classical Music Library now includes 7,417 albums, equaling 134,381 tracks, and is growing regularly.