What’s New at Schaffer Library

Free Access until November 15th!

American History in Video provides the largest and richest collection of video available online for the study of American history, with 2,000 hours and more than 5,000 titles on completion. The collection allows students and researchers to analyze historical events, and their presentation over time, through commercial and governmental newsreels, archival footage, public affairs footage, and important documentaries. This release now provides 1526 titles, with new videos from California Newsreel and PBS, equaling approximately 528 hours.

Browse by All Videos, Newsreel, Historical Eras, Years Discussed, Historical Events, People, Places, Topics, All Subjects, and Clips.

Exciting news for music lovers at Union. Music Online cross-search is live. As subscribers to Alexander Street’s music collections, we will soon be able to cross-search all your music listening, scores, and reference content through a single search. This change makes Music Online “the broadest and most comprehensive resource available for the study of classical, jazz, world, and American music.
It’s the only music service that delivers audio recordings, video content, full-text reference materials, musical scores, liner notes, biographies, and images through a unified interface. ”

The hundreds of thousands of cross-searchable items in Music Online include more than 88,000 tracks; 285 hours of dance and opera video; more than 13,000 scores; and more than 45,000 pages of reference content from over 150 different record and video labels, print and score publishers, including EMI, Boosey & Hawkes, Garland, Rounder Records, Rebel, Arhoolie Records, Verve, Arabesque Recordings, Smithsonian Folkways, Merce Cunningham Dance Foundation, and Opus Arte.

The continuously growing collection also makes cross-searchable thousands of liner notes, biographies, and images. In May, Music Online will expand to include 20,000 jazz recordings.
Schaffer Library will be activating this feature in the next few days.
The tracks in African American Music and Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries will be added to the cross search interface around August.

A unique and central feature of the Music Online suite is its robust playlist functionality, which allows users to build playlists, incorporating content from anywhere in Music Online—or from anywhere on the Web—and then annotate them, keep them at a permanent URL for private use, or share them, either within the institution or with all subscribers. Users can, for example, build a playlist that includes multiple recordings of a single work, its score, a dance video that incorporates the work, an essay about it published elsewhere on the Web, and a biography and photograph of the composer. The collection also includes featured playlists designed to be used in conjunction with leading music textbooks and in university-level survey courses.

See Databases & Indexes–Music for the current listings available.  Stay tuned for the new search interface.

Free Download: Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

L’Apprenti sorcier, or The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, is undoubtedly Paul Dukas’ most famous work. Described as a ’symphonic scherzo after a ballade of Goethe’, it was first performed on 18 May 1897 but owes a degree of its fame to Walt Disney who used it in the 1940 animated classic, Fantasia.

This recording is performed by the Orchestre Symphonique de Radio-Tele-Luxembourg; Louis de Froment, conductor.

Download this work now through February 23, 2009.

Free Download: Mozart’s Serenade No. 11 in E flat, K. 375

Of the three substantial wind serenades composed in Mozart’s early years in Vienna, K. 375 is probably the earliest, dating from October 1781. Originally scored for pairs of clarinets, bassoons, and horns, a revision of July 1782 added oboes to bring the instrumentation in line with the standard ‘harmonie’ ensemble.

This recording is performed by the Ensemble á Vent Français Bordeaux Aquitaine, Michel Arrignon, conductor.

Download this work now through December 22nd, 2008.

Free Download: Berlioz’s Overture to Benvenuto Cellini

For Berlioz, success in opera was the surest route to financial reward and artistic reputation. Berlioz embarked on a search for a suitable subject, finally settling on Benvenuto Cellini’s memoirs. Initially cast for the Opera-Comique in 1834, Berlioz elevated the tone of the work and offered it to the Paris Opera.

This recording is performed by the Orchestre national de Montpellier, Lionel Arnaud, conductor.

Download this work now through December 8th, 2008.