The Whittaker Library Blog is now on WordPress

Due to technical issues, we have migrated our library blog to WordPress.  

The Blogger platform served us well for two decades, but some followers have recently been unable to click weblinks on individual blogposts - it seems to depend which browser you're using.

If you have enjoyed our postings, please do migrate with us, and bookmark our new website so that you can continue to keep abreast of news!  

https://whittakerlive.wordpress.com/

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)

Theatre, Dance and Performance Training Blog Artist Awards

We've just been informed about a great opportunity for artists, practitioners, students and freelance performance makers. Have you come across TDPT? (It stands for Theatre, Dance and Performance Training.) There's a TDPT Journal, and a TDPT Blog, but now it gets even better - there are TDPT Blog Awards too. We'll let the TDPT team tell you all about it: read on!
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http://theatredanceperformancetraining.org/

The TDPT blog was launched last year to encourage a growing community of artists, academics, practitioners and researchers to share practice and debate issues that are currently alive within the disciplines of theatre, dance and performance training. In November to mark the one year anniversary of the launch of the site we will be launching a series of blog posts supported by the new TDPT Blog Artist Awards.

One of our aims was to engage a new audience for the TDPT journal while also creating an online space that encourages spontaneous and productive conversation and debate. We are grateful to everyone who has posted their work on the site to date and we are looking to further grow our network of artists, researchers and performance-makers. The blog currently has around 1000 visitors a month from around the world.

There's Cash!

We are keen to encourage artists, practitioners, students and freelance performance-makers to engage with the blog and are launching the TDPT Blog Artist Awards which aim to facilitate those not in full-time employment and students to be able to contribute to the site and the community. We have small pots of money (£50-150) to support artists who pitch an idea for a contribution to the site, either audio-visual, text-based or audio that disseminates an area of performer training that may be of interest to the wider community.

But You Have to Apply!

To apply, please write a short proposal (no more than 300 words) outlining your suggested submission, format and any media you intend to use. You should also include in your statement how you intend to disseminate your post to your networks and help build new audiences for the blog. Please email proposals to the blog editors:-

• Laura Bissell l.bissell@rcs.ac.uk, 
• Maria Kapsali M.Kapsali@leeds.ac.uk
• Bryan Brown B.Brown@exeter.ac.uk.

You visited Whittaker Live - our Performing Arts Blog! How did we do?

 Do you like what you find? This is one of the longest-running of library blogs - we do our best to share information that we think will interest our creative community of performers, actors, dancers, production artists and film/TV producers.

We generally prefer short, informative posts.  We like to share links with you, and we know that a picture tells more than a thousand words!

Please do tell us if we're on the right track!  

• Blog homepage http://whittakerlib.blogspot.com
• Library homepage https://www.rcs.ac.uk/about_us/libraryandit/
• Library catalogue http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/rcs/

What Did You Do on National Libraries Day?

National Libraries Day was on Saturday 7 February 2015.  Libraries aren't just places to borrow books - though that's an important function.  They're also places to access sheet music, orchestral or choral materials, plays, electronic information, audio, DVDs... not to mention internet access for an academic or public library community, or just somewhere to sit and read quietly. 

Consider joining the Library Campaign to support UK public libraries.

Some Expert Hints on Academic Writing from Bronwyn Labrum, Design Historian

Matter

A Blog About Writing, by Bronwyn Brown

We recently came across another useful blog about academic writing, and organising yourself to get it done.  It is authored by Bronwyn Labrum, a historian of design, clothing and fashion, museums and everyday life, and Associate Professor of Visual and Material Culture, School of Design,  at Massey University in New Zealand.

• http://bronwynlabrum.wordpress.com/

Employability Skills: View Yourself As A Product (Youtube)

Those ever-helpful people at Jobs.ac.uk have shared a Youtube link about PhD graduates' employability skills.  Are you applying for work?  Take a look HERE.

Don't forget to bookmark Jobs.ac.uk while you're at it.  Not just for finding work in academia - also for tips on job-seeking in general - writing a CV, attending an interview, etc.

On the same subject, you might like to follow the blog, From PhD to Life.  Today, Jennifer Polk talks about her deepening understand of what job interviews are all about:-

• A Job Interview, by Jennifer Polk.  
• Homepage http://fromphdtolife.com/

Sound and Moving Images from the British Library

 Sound and Vision Blog

You can do imaginative things with sound and moving images from the British Library Sounds website!  To get some inspiration, how about reading their blog?  They don't limit their ideas to the British Library resource, either. Here's the latest posting - suggesting a clever way of using Flickr.  Brilliant!

"Next up in our Inspired by Flickr series are two compositions from filmaker and sound artist Chris Lynn. The brief was to create a short sound piece inspired by one of the fabulous 1 million images released by the British Library last year onto Flickr Commons. The first image to catch Lynn's eye (and inspire his ears) was a 17th painting of Native Americans taken from William Strachey's 'Travels through Virginia'. The coloured engraving, entitled 'Their Sitting at Meate', called for a more faithful approach when creating the aural setting. Lynn wrote:
"I felt the Native American scene required just a simple field recording of waves gently breaking on the shore  [...] - See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/sound-and-vision/index.html#sthash.OGH15Rzv.dpuf "

Can't Take a Break From Research? Take a look at the Handel Reference Database

Bibliolore blog offers this posting about the Handel Reference Database, which you might find interesting.

Scottish Ensemble Residencies

This might interest some of our music students.  It's a blogpost by Morag Robertson, a recent Scottish Ensemble Young Artist.

Scottish Ensemble Residencies blog - click here.

PhD Student Ronnie Gibson blogs about Niel Gow the Gael

Gow the Gael: An Alternative History of Scottish Fiddle Music

Folk Musician Mike Seeger would have been 80 today, Bibliolore reminds us

Bibliolore blog commemorates what would have been Mike Seeger's eightieth birthday.  Read their blogpost.
 
Bibliolore is the blog authored by RILM music indexers.  Always quality information, on a variety of music related topics.  Bibliolore homepage here.

http://bibliolore.org/

Bibliolore blogs about Mallarme and Dance

Mention Mallarme to our singers, and they'll think of poetry.  But the people at RILM (the music bibliography database) have blogged today about Mallarme and dance.  So, that means Mallarme will be interesting to our ballet students, too!

Read the Bibliolore blogpost about Mallarme and dance here.

World Music and Womad, in a blogpost from Bibliolore

Read on ....

http://bibliolore.org/2013/03/27/a-lullaby-for-world-music/

Research into Scottish fiddle-tune accompaniments

© Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk.

This seems an appropriate image to illustrate the Bass Culture research project I'm assisting with.  (It is part of a bigger picture by David Allan, called A Highland Wedding at Blair Atholl.)

 What I and my colleagues at the Universities of Glasgow and Cambridge are seeking to establish, is what the cellist was playing, what patterns we can identify, and how it changed during the 18th-early 19th centuries.  Here's our brand-new blog, including a fab picture of the research team.

And here's another nice one called The Penny Wedding, by Sir David Wilkie.  His preliminary sketch shows the musicians more clearly.

http://www.artexpertswebsite.com/pages/artists/artists_l-z/wilkie/Wilkie_ThePennyWedding.jpg

 

Szymanowski, anyone? Interesting blogpost

On the Bibliolore blog, there's a new post entitled "Szymanowski and Eros" 

A thoroughly commendable, high-quality blog, so worth a look!

Costume Design Blog

Thanks to social media - and my own stitching fingers - I've encountered @Sewing_Online on Twitter.  I asked for costume design links, and the first they suggested was Costume Design Blog.

Why not take a look?

http://www.costumedesignblog.com/

They also suggested Deirdre Kavanagh's Pinterest site, Costume Design Inspiration, and did a search for me on Top 20 Sites for costume design.

Jacket in progress

This, on the other hand, is my own current project.  Better get on with it tonight!

The University Blog

Sensible advice from someone who blogs about the university life and higher education in general.  The most recent has advice about note-taking in lectures.

Helpful? You can post a comment below if you like!

British Library Music Blog

Whittaker is pleased to be one of the first to welcome British Library Music Blog to the blogosphere!

Visit it here - it's sure to be a class act!

http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/music/

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Our Performance Librarian, Lucy Robertson, flew to New Orleans (Lucy in the sky) for an orchestral librarians' conference, yesterday.  We're waiting to hear news not only from the conference, but also about any concerts she attends (with diamonds), whilst she's in Jazz City.  And here's her blog.