How old do you think this Recording is? (World's Oldest Mozart Recording)

Europeana Sounds offers some unique archival moments.  We heard today about this, possibly the earliest ever recording of a Mozart aria.  Listen here!

• http://www.europeanasounds.eu/ (homepage)

(Our thanks to IAML, the International Association of Music Libraries), for this intriguing link, posted on their weekly news website.)

We are the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  IAML is our professional association.

Did you know about the Theatres At Risk Register?

There are nine theatres at risk, says the Guardian Culture Professionals Network.  This is something that will be of concern to all actors, so we're sharing the link here for you to read:-

Theatres at risk: nine arts venues facing destruction – in pictures

If this kind of posting interests you, then consider signing up to Guardian Culture Professionals Network. (It's a favourite haunt of the Whittaker Library's music librarian.)

• Join the Guardian Culture Professionals Network

Harness Your Creativity!

We recently found two useful blogposts about creativity, so - since the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is bursting with creatives, we thought we'd better share these links!

• What I wish I knew about Creativity when I was 20, by BufferOpen
• How Creative Geniuses Come up with Great Ideas, by James Clear

The Whittaker Library has loads of resources, print-based and electronic.  Books, scores, recordings, streamable sound, research databases - you've no idea! Plenty there to ignite your creative spark.

Bumper Crop of E-Resources Free to our Performing Artists

There's a really good selection of digital resources on the Whittaker Library website these days.  Here's our pick of the crop:-

Audio streamed sound and the Alexander Street Press collection

There's a huge range of materials available through the Alexander Street Press MOP (Music Online Premium) collection, and there's more to Naxos than you realised!

Databases for musical topics, essays and research: JSTOR, RILM and Oxford Music

We subscribe to the JSTOR music package: full-text articles from any of the journals in that package, once they've been published for about 3 years.  JSTOR is on our E-resources page.  Click on JSTOR Music Collection to see list of titles.

 

HOW TO FIND MATERIAL IN JSTOR

Clicking on Browse is useful for an overview, or click Search for something specific.  The Advanced Search is great for refining your search.  You can link terms with "And", give alternative terms with "Or", or exclude terms using "Not".  (Eg, you might search for Sibelius AND computer software, or if you're looking for the composer, search Sibelius NOT computer software!)

You can also choose where your search-terms will appear:-

• If you select ‘abstract’, that means the words will be in the summary and have a better chance of being relevant.    
•  Or you can say that the words must be in the title.  Different results – it’s very precise search but might find articles that don’t have an abstract.

You can search for all kinds of topics – not just particular composers, but maybe something like reflective practice.  

If you’re looking for full-text articles, you need to select “Content I can access”.  If you’ve got an interdisciplinary query, then it might still be worth doing a wider search. (Our readers can ask the library to try to obtain articles from other journals that we don’t subscribe to.)

• Here’s something else useful - My JSTOR is a way of storing articles that you’ve found, so you can come back to them later.   
• And there’s a “shelf” facility where you keep the articles you’re actively reading on your “shelf” for a couple of weeks.  This is over and above the facility to keep citations.  More about My Shelf here:- http://about.jstor.org/rr

View the JSTOR presentation about the database HERE.

RILM - music abstracts

There are big differences between JSTOR and RILM:-  

• JSTOR is full-text.  We subscribe to the music package, and you’ll find anything but the most recent issues of the journals listed.  You can also look to see what's been written if you're interested in an interdisciplinary topic.
• RILM is just for musical topics.  It’s an index to the abstracts of journal articles – you get summaries, but you don’t generally get the articles themselves.  (Although RILM says linked full-text is available, this doesn’t mean that we subscribe to the e-journal, so the full-texts links don’t always work!)  If we don’t have the articles in stock, we can try to obtain them for you.  Undergraduates usually find what they need in our own collection until they get to extended projects or dissertations.
• Advanced Search works much better than Simple Search.  You get more results!
• RILM is collaborative – core journals are indexed but you can also add your own articles if they haven’t come up via the RILM indexers. This gets them “out there” where people can find them.

OXFORD MUSIC is also known as Grove Music.  The database builds on what was originally Grove Dictionary of Music, but also includes Oxford Dictionary of Music and Oxford Companion to Music.  This means you can choose the amount of info you need.

• Useful bibliographies.
• Facility to print out articles.
• There's a gadget to produce correctly formatted citations (publication details) for essays and articles.
• Note the Highlight on/off, Print, Email and Cite buttons at the top of the article.  

STREAMED MUSIC - We demonstrated what Alexander Street Press playlists can do for you!

DRAMA RESOURCES 

The Learning and Teaching conference session embraced the main subscription databases that are subscribed to via the Whittaker library, including:

 

• Digital Theatre Plus -A growing collection of recorded performance of drama, opera & dance with educational background materials. 
• Dance in Video - 500 hours of dance, covering ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, experimental, & improvisational dance. 
• Drama Online - An online library of 1000+ plays 100+ scholarly works 
• BUFVC (British Universities Film and Video Council) -A database that can help find previously broadcast TV & Radio programmes. 
• Stan Winston School of Character Arts -Online training website with the world's finest FX Artists and technicians.

These are only some of our online databases.  We're also thinking about the changing digital expectations of students and how best to address these expectations by using Electronic Resources in your teaching and lesson plans. 

Scottish versus English, Folk versus National, Tradition Versus Revival

And NOTHING to do with the referendum!

Karen wrote a blogpost about folk music last night - find it on her own blog, Karen McAulay Teaching Artist.  She has been reading a Faber reprint of a biography of the ardent folk music collector and educator, Cecil Sharp.  It was written by his close associate, Maud Karpeles.

Would you be interested in reading this book?  Royal Conservatoire of Scotland staff and students should contact the Whittaker Library if they're keen!

Watch Opera Online with Digital Theatre Plus

Digital Theatre Plus is a resource that the Whittaker Library subscribes to for the benefit of Royal Conservatoire of Scotland staff and students. Find Digital Theatre Plus on the Whittaker Library website, or via our Mahara pages.

Musicians, don't be fooled by the name - there's opera there, too! These were added in August 2014:-

Three new releases from the Royal Opera House
Three more titles have been added to the Royal Opera House Collection:

Hansel and Gretel
Eugene Onegin
Dido and Aeneas

Could you use Free Online Access to Thousands of Century Old Recordings? La Phonobase

La Phonobase is a French source of free archival recordings.  Well worth a look.

Visit it here:-

La Phonobase

TRANSLATION: La Phonobase offers music historians and enthusiasts alike a new resource of hundreds of pre-1914 recordings, mainly from France. These old sources have been digitised with the most advanced technology, and offer the whole range of different types of music - popular, opera songs and cafe-music. The resource is regularly updated, and enquiries or comments are very welcome.

"La Phonobase - www.phonobase.org - offre à l'historien, au musicologue, ainsi qu'à tous les publics, la ressource nouvelle de milliers d'enregistrements, réalisés avant 1914, principalement en France. Ces documents anciens sont numérisés avec des moyens techniques avancés. On trouvera représenté l'ensemble des genres musicaux alors les plus en vogue, de l'air d'opéra aux chansons des étoiles du café-concert. La base est enrichie régulièrement. Questions et réflexions sont les bienvenues."

Conservatoire Alumna Alison McNeill is ReelyJiggered

Here's a special date for your diary:-

Oran Mor, 20th Sept. 2014, 7.30 pm.

Kaleidoscope

Alumna Alison McNeill graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland with a Masters in Performance in 2013. A year on sees her band, Reely Jiggered, launching their album at Oran Mor on 20th September at 7.30 pm.

From the press release:-

"Since winning SoundWave Music Competition at the O2 ABC in January there has been no stopping Scottish Folk Rock Fusion band Reely Jiggered! Their NEW ALBUM entitled KALEIDOSCOPE shows just how versatile these musicians are as they shape shift from one folk tradition to another.

"such a stunning collection of music by the most talented of musicians. It's a while since I've been so excited about an album that I feel will live forever...." Alan Grant, Celtic Music Radio

"The Album boasts 11 new tracks which take you on a  journey through the streets of Mexico, the salsa clubs of Cuba, the furious fiddling of gypsies, and haunting melodies of Celtic Britain mixed with the soaring voice of a diva soprano, the beauty of acoustic instruments, revved up by driving bass lines, wah wah pedals and rocked up rhythms.

• To book your tickets visit http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/event/reely-jiggered-album-launch-tickets/134309

7.30pm Ten Gallon Bratz (Support)
8.30pm Reely Jiggered

 

• See Reely Jiggered's new PROMO VIDEO 

Getting to Know the Neighbours: Glasgow School of Art

Glasgow School of Art was sadly thrust into the headlines earlier this summer when there was a catastrophic fire at the main GSA building, destroying the iconic Charles Rennie Mackintosh Library.  It was a tragedy, but the local fire brigade were the heroes of the day, saving more than anyone imagined could be saved.  Work is under way both restoring the building and trying to replace some of the priceless books that were in that library.

However, the main GSA Library is in a different building, so that collection was unaffected.  It's a great resource for anyone needing visual inspiration, so will be particularly interesting to our theatrical production community.  If you're an undergraduate or taught postgraduate, you can go and read there but won't be able to borrow books.  (We can arrange inter library loans, though.)  And if you're a research student or member of staff, your SCONUL Access will let you borrow books too. 

In brief:

• Undergraduates or taught Masters students going to another Scottish Higher Education institution don't need SCONUL Access cards - just their normal matriculation card will get them in for reference purposes.  They do need SCONUL Access cards to go to university libraries beyond Scotland. 
• And researchers or staff need SCONUL Access cards in order to borrow books.
• Apply online for SCONUL Access.  The Whittaker Library has to approve your application.  Here's the SCONUL Access website:-
  
  • http://www.access.sconul.ac.uk/sconul-access

 And you'll need these, too:-

• GSA Library and Learning Resources website
• GSA Archives and Collections - blog

Costume Making at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

The Whittaker Library supports our costumiers with a great selection of books and other resources.  Here's a link to all our costume books - a very substantial collection!  Don't hesitate to speak to our library staff if you need help sourcing books about costume-making.  Our Drama and Ballet librarian is in charge of this collection.

• Costume books at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland's Whittaker Library

Because  our music librarian is a keen dressmaker, she also saves useful web-links on sewing clothes, which we share with you HERE.  See if there's anything that interests you.

Getting to Know the Neighbours: Glasgow University Library

One of the great things about Glasgow is the wide choice of libraries to use.  Staff and students at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland have their own Whittaker Library, of course, but sometimes it's good to know you can visit other libraries - public and academic - as well.
  There is a scheme called SCONUL Access which allows researchers and staff to borrow from other university libraries.  If you're an undergraduate or taking a taught Masters degree, you can still use the scheme to use other university libraries for reference, i.e. to consult books within the library but not borrow them.  And that applies to any UK university libraries, not just Glasgow ones, so you could get reading access to one near your family home during vacations, too.

Here's the good bit.  If you're an undergraduate going to another Scottish university of college library, your matriculation card should be enough to get you in without applying for a SCONUL Access card. 

If you're consulting books in a university or college library outside Scotland, or if you're a researcher wanting to borrow books, then you should apply for SCONUL Access online.  Your own Whittaker Library staff have to approve your application.  (Do make sure you haven't got heaps of overdue loans or fines.  We have to guarantee that you're a well-behaved library user!!)

Click here to read about SCONUL Access.  This is a brief excerpt from their website, describing the access agreement:-

"If you are:

• a member of staff (both academic and support staff) on an open or fixed term contract
• a postgraduate research student registered for a PhD, MPhil or similar qualification
• a part-time, distance learning and placement student
• or a full-time postgraduate

and your university or college is a member of the scheme, you may be able to borrow from other college or university libraries.
If you are

• a full-time undergraduate student

and your university or college is a member of the scheme, you may be able to use the resources of other college and university libraries for reference."

Glasgow University Library has a huge and very excellent collection, covering all subjects.  Here's their website:- http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/library/  You can follow them on Twitter @uofglibrary.

We'll introduce you to some other local libraries in future blogposts.   

We are the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, here to serve the information needs of our student and staff performing artists.  Follow us on Twitter @Whittakerlib.

Getting to Know the Neighbours: The Mitchell Library

Wikipedia image of  Mitchell Library, Glasgow, UK.

Well, the Mitchell isn't exactly next-door, but it's certainly good to know about Glasgow's flagship public library.

Mitchell Library website

Musicians, Have You Encountered Grounded Theory?

This is possibly a new term for most musicians, but 'grounded theory' is a research method with origins in sociological scholarship.  Two sociologists (Glaser and Strauss) published a book called, The Discovery of Grounded Theory, in 1967.

More recently, Barry Gibson and Jan Hartman have written, Rediscovering Grounded Theory.  (We won't attempt to describe sociological theories between 1967 and 2014!)

If your research supervisor suggests that you investigate grounded theory, at least the Whittaker Library now has something for you to investigate!  Publication details HERE.

Starting a Music Degree? Here's How to Impress Your Lecturers!

If you're a performing artist, you'll probably be encouraged to keep a reflective diary, logging your progress as a musician or actor.  The Whittaker Library has books to help you develop your diary-keeping skills as a reflective practitioner.

However, there will be essays and topics to research, too.  So take a tip from a librarian: keep a record of everything you read, as well as everything you play.  And in your note-taking, never copy out a quote without noting the page where you found it. Make sure you put inverted commas at the start and end of the quote, then there's no risk of you accidentally using those words without citing who wrote them!  The form of referencing used at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is called the Harvard system.  (Don't worry if you forget the name - you'll be reminded soon enough!)

If you keep a bibliography (list of books read), note the author, title, publication place, publisher and date. Also the edition, if it's not the first.  It's a good idea to keep your list in alphabetical order by author, so you can find things later.  A Word document will do fine!  

If you enjoy downloading apps and freeware, you can even save your bibliography to the cloud so that you can access it from any computer you use.  

Take a look at Mendeley or Zotero - two useful free resources.  They help you control that growing list of references, and assist with formatting the bibliographic details so they're always consistent.  Come and see us if you need a bit of help getting started. Sometimes it's a good idea to annotate your bibliography with any earth-shattering discoveries you made whilst reading.  These apps will offer you a place for making such notes if you think they would help. ("Chapter 8: author describes harmonics in clarinet timbre.  Chapter 10: bagpipes as a martial instrument.")

Congratulations!  You're already well on the way to being one of the most organised freshers in town!  Your lecturers will be seriously impressed.

Whittaker Library shares the latest E-Resources

Next week, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is holding a Learning and Teaching Conference for staff. The Whittaker Library's subject librarians are champing at the bit to share all the latest electronic resources with their academic colleagues at special sessions on Wednesday 17th September.
.

Dip Your Toe in the Water!

It’s good practice to set training sessions in context by giving attendees a chance to think about what’s coming up in the session, before the session actually takes place. So we're encouraging our colleagues to take a look at the Library's e-resources page.

In the music session, Catherine will be focusing on Alexander Street Press (Music Online Premium, or MOP) and Naxos; and Karen will be talking about JSTOR and RILM, with a brief mention of Oxford Music. Before the session, colleagues are encouraged to try searching for something that's bound to get results, like Mendelssohn, or Kodaly.

Meanwhile, Alan will be giving a simultaneous session for drama and dance specialists. The e-resources can all be found on the same page, whichever RCS department staff are attached to. 
.

Calm Sea and a Prosperous Voyage (click HERE)

This is a quick introductory session – hopefully we'll have our colleagues swimming in the cyber-sea of electronic resources before they know it!

Clever Clarinet Tips for Avant-Garde Clarinettists

Visit Heather Roche's website, where there is an A-Z of clarinet techniques.

http://heatherroche.net/

How to Write About Music

New in stock:-

How to Write About Music: the RILM Manual of Style, 2nd edition

Sure to be useful to readers in the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  RILM is the music abstract and indexing database that we subscribe to, and any publication from the RILM organisation is bound to be top quality.  We've got two copies, both for short loan.

 We are the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, here to support our performing artists and technician in all their study, research and teaching requirements.

Library Tips for Getting Started On a Research Project

Researchers at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland are generally researching some aspect of the performing arts.  We've compiled a reading list of books that we have in stock about research methodology - some are more general, and others are subject-specific.  You can access the list HERE.

Did you know that If you're one of our registered readers, you can save your own reading lists once you’ve logged in?  This is a way of keeping note of useful material.  Alternatively, you could sign up to Zotero or Mendeley.  But do start keeping a bibliography from the very beginning of your research - there's nothing worse than being unable to trace something that you're sure you read a while ago!

We are the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, here to support our performing artists and technicians in their teaching, learning and research.

Essays on Engaging Music Students (Getting them interested, not hiring them!)

Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy

Morning, everyone! This online collection of essays looks as though it could be quite useful; we're sharing it on here this blog so our academics will be able to retrieve it in future too. There are two volumes now - the second has just been published online.

• Vol.1 http://www.flipcamp.org/engagingstudents/
• Vol.2 http://www.flipcamp.org/engagingstudents2/index.html

More about this project, quoted from the opening page of Vol.1:- 

"Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy presents short essays on the subject of student-centered learning, and serves as an open-access, web-based resource for those teaching college-level classes in music.
The motivation behind the assembly of this collection was drawn in part from our vision for a new format for scholarly communication based upon collaborative and swift peer review. We take our inspiration from hack-a-thons, in which creative solutions to a problem emerge from working intensely together in a collaborative environment for a limited time. Authors received feedback quickly, and the revision process consisted of efficient online interactions with the editorial group. The final result is not only open-access, but open-source. Each essay is licensed to encourage collaboration to continue post-publication, as the essays are distributed, remixed, and hacked in various ways. And the entire volume can be "forked" and used as the basis for new projects or updates to the current project..."  *

Do you have a Diigo account (for saving links "in the cloud")? Karen has a Diigo folder foreducation links - feel free to browse, and you might find other useful stuff! 

*Legal details:- "All contents on this site, unless otherwise stated, are copyright 2013 by the Engaging Students editorial board and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.  This is a FlipCamp project hosted on GitHub Pages"

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/