Naxos Music Library is Live!

Our subscription to Naxos Music Library is now active! Thank you to all who submitted feedback during our recent trial of the service. You can access Naxos Music Library from the Music Subject Page. You must be connected to the campus network in order to access this page or to connect to Naxos Music Library.

In the future, I hope to be able to purchase and import catalog records for each of the albums on Naxos Music Library that have been cataloged.

The catalog record for the service itself can be found here.

Our subscription allows for only five simultaneous listeners, so I ask that you use the service judiciously, keeping in mind that it is for the entire NIU community.

New digital library of European culture

On his blog, Library Stuff, Stephen Cohen referred to an article from PC Magazine, posted on Yahoo! Tech, entitled "Readers Overwhelm Europe's New Digital Library." This massive humanities resource went down the day it was launched due to an unexpected demand for access. According to the site's homepage, www.europeana.eu, it will be up again next month. Keep your eyes open!

Digitized Medieval Manuscripts

I read today on Guido's Hand, the blog of the Oberlin Conservatory Library, a syndicated article by John Tagliabue from the New York Times entitled, "Bringing a Trove of Medieval Manuscripts Online for the Ages." This article describes the
"Codices Electronici Sangallenses," or Digital Abbey Library of St. Gallen, Switzerland. Currently, this database contains 144 digitized manuscripts, with updates added continually. There are links to this database from the NIU Libraries History and Library Science pages.

New books of note

I noticed two books today in our new arrivals that I would like to share:

Hallelujah Junction, an autobiography by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adams. It can be found under call no. MUX ML410.S233 A3 2008.

also:

Blues Empress in Black Chattanooga: Bessie Smith and the Emerging Urban South, by Michelle R. Scott. This book chronicles Bessie Smith's early years. It can be found under call no. MUX ML420.S667 S36 2008.

Arts funding could improve following last week's election

According to the PlaybillArts article, "Arts Action Fund Issues Statement on Election Results," we could be entering a period of increased funding for the arts.
This article features a statement by Bob Lynch, president and CEO of the Americans for the Arts Action Fund.

Historical recordings released on compact disc

I saw a reference to the New York Times article, "Classical Ghosts, Audible Once Again" by Daniel Wakin in today's Arts and Letters Daily. The article describes the discovery of a large collection of wax cylinders recorded by Julius Block from the dawn of the recording age, over one hundred years ago, and plans to release selections from this collection on compact disc.