Music Helping Dementia Sufferers

Music and Memory

Are you involved in community music ventures, or music therapy?  Here's an interesting article from Maine, USA, about a program using music therapy to reduce the amount of anti-psychotic drugs taken by dementia sufferers.  This comes fresh from the Bangor Daily News, Maine.  Read on ...

Understanding What Plagiarism Means

Ethical Writing

Students in higher education sometimes ask what exactly plagiarism is.  It's using someone else's words as your own, without saying where you got them from.

In the recent USA presidential elections, much has been made of a speech apparently plagiarised from one made years ago by Michelle Obama.  Look at the above definition of plagiarism. Play the YouTube clips.  Look at the definition again.

This is how it was reported in the Guardian.

Ask in the library if you'd like help with referencing in your written work.  There is nothing wrong with quoting an authority - you just need to cite their words properly.  (Preferably most of your writing is about what you think, so don't fill up your word allowance with too many quotes - only use quotes from other people to reinforce your arguments.)

Plagiarism is copying without citing.  It's not cool!

Euphonium and Tuba in Atlanta

Whittaker's in-tray contained an invitation today:-

2014 International Euphonium Tuba Festival

at Emory University in Atlanta, USA

 

22-28 June 2014

The invitation comes rather late for our readers to book attendance, but we wish the Festival a happy and fulfilling week all the same.

More information can be found at Euphonium.com - if you play Euphonium or Tuba, maybe you'd like to save this link to your favourites.

4th July - Independence Day

America, America

Flag from Wikimedia.org
 (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/US_flag_15_stars.svg)

'Whittaker' thinks he'll go through the CD donations and catalogue anything American today, in honour of Independence Day.  (It'll be subject-indexed as 'American music'.) 

• Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland: catalogue search - American music
• Same search, but only where specifically subject-indexed as American music.  (See how much more precise the results are?)

Meanwhile, here's a map of America - the Popple Map of 1733, as blogged by the inspired Special Collections people at the University of St Andrews.

• Echoes from the Vault - homepage of St Andrews Special Collections blog.

Lucy In New Orleans

Lucy Robertson, Performance Librarian

Our Performance Librarian, bassist Lucy Robertson, is heading over to New Orleans for an orchestral librarians' conference in May.  Naturally, she'll be blogging her Letters from America.  Bookmark this page:-


http://LucyInNewOrleans.blogspot.com

Here's the website for MOLA (Major Orchestra Librarians' Association)

Wikipedia (English language) Blackout Wednesday 18th January

Wikipedia Blackout
You need to know this.  Tomorrow (Wednesday), you won't be able to access Wikipedia in English, because they're protesting about proposed anti-piracy legislation in the United States.

Read more about the politics on Wikipedia (before or after the blackout!).  It's about the freedom of information, and who owns it.  Make your own mind up what you think.

English Wikipedia anti-SOPA blackout

From the Wikimedia Foundation

 

To: English Wikipedia Readers and Community From: Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Date: January 16, 2012

Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States—the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate—that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia.
This will be the first time the English Wikipedia has ever staged a public protest of this nature, and it’s a decision that wasn’t lightly made

'Letter to my students': a US professor tells it how it is

This came up on the Twittersphere - the letter which Steve Aird, a Maryland professor, sends to his students at the start of session. 

It basically says, getting an education is hard work. I'll teach you; you must do your bit; and you'll get the marks you deserve!  Read it here.