Just like the proverbial penny, I just keep turning up in the Center for the Arts.  This semester’s onsite research help visits will begin on Wednesday, October 7th and continue until Finals Week in December.  I will be sitting in the Atrium/Commons area of the second floor of Center for the Arts every Wednesday from noon to 1:30 pm.  If you want to swing by to say hi, ask for help in finding a journal article, suggest materials for library purchase, or just talk, please pull up a chair at my table and sit a spell.  No appointments are necessary during these weekly sessions, and I am happy to help in whatever way needed.  Armed with my trusty laptop, and a supply of Wozworld Quick Guides, I am ready to assist you!! Check out my poster!!!

Just this week, the long anticipated Baltimore Hebrew University (now known as the Baltimore Hebrew Institute at TU) collection has arrived at Cook Library.  The bulk of the collection will be housed on the second floor of the library, formerly the home of the bound journal collection.  Over 80,000 items will be available, ranging from books to newspapers to media materials.  Topics covered include fine arts, geneaology, children’s books, and comparative religions.  Specialized materials such as the Holocaust Survivor Testamonies Video Archive and Memorial (Yizkor) books will document historical events and places, as will the rare book collection which includes materials dating from the 16th to the 20th centuries.             

 The collection includes materials in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, German, Spanish,  and  French, and will have periodicals/newspapers as well as reference material.  Special databases such as the Index to Jewish Periodicals will be available at selected computer work stations on the second floor of the library.  Items in the collection will not appear in the library catalog until October, and the integration of catalog records may take some time,  so ask for help at the Reference Desk if you need help in locating a particular item within the collection.  The bulk of the books (with the exception of reference material) will be available for borrowing.   The second floor of the library will remain closed until Wednesday, August 26th, when users are welcome to visit the collection.

If you have not ventured over to Cook Library this summer and head to the 4th floor to grab a copy of a needed score, you may feel you have landed in an episode of The Twilight Zone.  Due to some massive shifting of collections required by the acquisition of the Baltimore Hebrew University collection, the M area of Stacks has a new home.  All M print materials, with the exception of current paper journal subscriptions, are now housed on the 5th floor of Cook Library.  The location of materials on the floor is almost identical to where they were formerly housed on the fourth floor, but now you must climb one floor higher to see them. 

As part of this shift, all bound  journal titles in music have  received call numbers and are shelved under their respective numbers in the M, ML, or MT sections.  The latest paper copies are still housed in the Periodicals Reading Room.   Quarto M scores are still at the beginning of the M stack section, and the M folios have been moved to the folio section of shelves at the front of the fifth floor.  End of aisle stack signs are being printed as this post is being typed, but may take a while to be visible.  Please bear with us as we put the final touches on the new home for the M stacks materials.

The Cook Library web page is boasting a new, sleek interface with easy navigation and user friendly search boxes.  The same great information that you knew and loved is still there, but our primary interface has been improved for quick access to links and docs.  Kudos to Kay Kazinski and her Web Development Team for such a marvelous job.  Check out the “Need Help” tab at the top of the page if you get confused – but I bet you won’t.  Lovely graphics, easy navigation, and simple search boxes – who could ask for more?  Take it out for a spin yourself at http://cooklibrary.towson.edu/.

If you are still kicking up your heels over the additions of the Alexander Street Press streaming video databases (see previous posts of June 5th), you will flip your bonnet with the addition of the Films on Demand video streaming database.  Comprised of over 5,000+ entries from films under the Films Media Group umbrella, Films on Demand has a wealth of material for all the performing arts. 

Entries are broken down into short segments, perfect for showing to a class during a lecture.  Available also is the option to view an entire documentary outside of class, either on or off campus.  And unlike the Alexander Street Press video products that have a 3 simultaneous user limit, FOD has unlimited simultaneous access.  Yee ha!  

Because the database search screens can be a little confusing – and the subject categories of dance and theater, for some reason, do not appear on the left side navigation link – I have created a quick guide to searching for films in the database. You can access it by clicking the linking here: “Films on Demand Database Quick Guide.” It was also emailed to Dance, Music, and Theatre Arts library reps for distribution to faculty.

You can register for a free FOD account which will allow you to create playlists of film scenes for student access or select favorites to come back and view later.  Durable URL’s allow for use in Blackboard coursework, and you can even email the link for a film to another TU community member for collaborative work.  Git along, pardner!

My faves from tooling around in the database:

• Bill T. Jones: Still/Here – dance performances so moving, they will make you cry
• America:  Broadway and Dramatic Realism – fascinating study of the 20’s and 30’s dramatic art
• The Piano:  The King of Instruments – my interest should be self-explanatory 

There are many clips in the database for use with a wide variety of performing arts research topics.  On a final note, I am at a loss to explain why I appear to be channeling Seven Brides for Seven Brothers today, but it must have been something I saw while experimenting with FOD!

Starting today and continuing through July 31st, the stacks areas of Cook Library will see massive shifting of volumes and a new configuration of shelving of these materials.  With the addition of the Baltimore Hebrew University Judaica Collection to be housed on the second floor of Cook Library, bound journals will now be classed with a LC call number and shelved under their respective numbers in the stacks. 

Current loose copies of journals will still be kept in the Periodicals Reading Room on the 2nd floor of the library, but all bound volumes will now be found under their call numbers on floors 4 and 5 of the library.  When you check on a print journal title’s availablility in  the Cook Library catalog, a call number will display for bound volumes.  For any issues needed beyond the current year, check under this number in the stacks areas.  Stacks are divided with call numbers A – K on the 5th floor and L – Z on the 4th floor.

Furthermore, the stack areas will be shifted so that the collections are shelved from left to right.  This means that the collections will be shelved on each floor with lowest numbers starting on the front left as you enter, progressing to the the highest numbers at the rear of the right side of the floor.  Boy, does that sound confusing! The best way to remember this is that if you walk onto a floor from the main lobby the layout would resemble a sidways letter “S.”  Still confused?  I don’t blame you.  Here is a diagram of how the new layout will work:

While this switcheroo of shelving takes place, there may be times where a book or score that you need may not be on the shelves.  In the event you can’t find what you need, please email me, and I will get in touch with the two folks in charge of this project and make sure that your material is located.  It also means that unless your favorite section is in the middle of the floor, you will have to re-orient yourself a bit:  music will now be on the left side of the fourth floor, plays on right side, and dance materials will stay where they were in the middle of the fifth floor.  Whew, I am as dizzy writing this post as I used to get when I square danced in my high school gym class.  Now, do si do to  your partner and promenade to the books on music therapy!

Along with dance and opera, theatre rounds out the trio of subject areas benefitting from the newest purchase of research resources for the performing arts.  Like its’ dance and opera sisters, Theatre in Video captures classic performances on film for 250 plays plus documentaries and interviews with directors and actors.  Browsing indexes allows users to select material by play title or director/ performer name. Cook Library’s license allows for three simultaneous users, whether on or off campus.  While users can sign in and create an account to save selected plays and create film clips of specific sections of scenes,  the clip creation tools are not as high tech as those offered in the other two databases.  Some of the icons used for adding items to playlists and editing clips do not look exactly like those used in the dance and opera video databases, but a quick hover with your mouse will quickly orient you to the usage for that tool.  Registered users can keep playlists and clip lists private or share with TU members or all database users.  System requirements are easy to find, and like all the Alexander Street video products, you have the ability to stream your video in a quarter, half, and full screen mode for better visibility.  Shakespeare productions are particularly plentiful in number,  and Alexander Street expects to add a greater variety of play titles by world playwrights as copyright agreements with distributors are reached.  If productions are not in English, subtitles appear directly on the film.  One drawback is that very few productions beyond the Shakespeare titles allow users to stream by specific scene location within the film; most allow you to stream the entire video production, rather than select a specific scene.  As this was the first of the three Alexander Street video streaming products created, maybe this feature was a later added option in the newer products.  I enjoyed eating my lunch watching Derek Jacobi plot to gain the crown of England in Richard II – I bet you will find lots of fav films as well.

Along with the previously mentioned Alexander Street video product, Opera in Video makes it appearance this week for both on and off campus use by TU researchers.

Like its dance counterpart, TU has access for three simultaneous users both on and off campus.  System requirements on the home page of the database will describe hardware, software, and bandwith requirements.  This database is still in growing with a total of 49 full length opera productions currently available for streaming with a target collection of 250 films.  Film types include documentaries, editorials, interviews, filmed live productions, and videotaped performances of operas and related material.  English subtitles are available for operas, and in many cases, liner notes from a DVD package are also included.  The general search box will allow you to search for a specific aria, or you can browse by composer or work title.  Users can sign in for free as a registered user to create a playlist of favorite scenes or operas that can be kept private or shared with others.  Registered users can also create customized film clips, highlighting a particular aria or scene within a film, then save it for quick reference.  A wide variety of productions are included ranging from classic Pavarotti performances of traditional repertoire to modern staged versions of Orfeo ed Euridice with blue jean and leather jacket clad singers.  Check it out!!

The Alexander Street Press product, Dance in Video, is a video streaming service for dance research now available through the Cook Library web page as well as through ResearchPort.  The database has a three simultaneous user limit, which includes both on and off campus access.  System Requirements (browsers, bandwith, etc) are listed on the database’s home page.  The database currently contains 150 dance videos with a target collection of 250.  Clips include documentaries, performances, interviews, and instructional films.  Genres covered range from ballet to contemporary, and advanced search indexes allow for searching by performers, venues, companies, composers, choreographers, and work titles.  Sign in to become a registered user and create a free account which allows you to save films to a playlist and create your own personally designed clips from films for future use and to share with others.  Instructors can imbed a link to a flim or a clip to their Blackboard accounts for use by classes and add notes for students.  Personal preferences allow registered users to set playlists and clips to be kept private, shared with TU users, or available to all database users.  Altogether a nifty product – you will be lost for hours investigating the wealth of filmed material present.

Up and running this week are four new video streaming databases that will assist faculty and students in performing arts research.  All are currently available from the Cook Library web page for on campus use and through ResearchPort for off campus access.  The databases are:  Dance in Video, Opera in Video, Theatre in Video, and American History in Video.  The three performing arts based databases will all receive separate posts with descriptions.  The American History in Video  has unlimited user access both on and off campus and can be used for dramaturgical research, or background information relating to ethnomusicology, and sociohistorical issues relating to dance.