About the New Website

As you have probably noticed, there have been many changes on our website. While we are hoping to eventually change the look of the site to match up more closely with the University’s new website design (which should be up soon), there are several exciting new changes that we are sure you will like. Here are just a few of them:

1. That five-tabbed search box in the center of our homepage is a very valuable tool for searching a variety of our resources in order to find library materials, research assistance, articles, databases, and course reserves. Many of your searching needs will be met with this one box, so plan on becoming very familiar with it.
   
   
2. We changed the navigation to focus on tasks rather than resources. This means, for example, that you don’t need to know about eJournals AtoZ in order to find full-text articles online. You just need to click on the Find Articles, Journals, etc. link and the next page will point you in the right direction (you can also use the Articles & Journals tab in the abovementioned search box).
   
   
3. Once you figure out which resources you need, you can access the most commonly used ones in our Top Tools section, found in the left-side navigation bar. You’ll also find a lot of the important performing arts resources (Naxos Music Library, Oxford Music Online, etc.) underneath the large search box.
   

It may seem like an odd time to roll out a new website and I know it is very sudden, but for reasons out of our control we had to go live a little sooner than expected. So expect to see some more improvements in the next few months as we consult with you, our users, to see how we can make it even better. We’ll try to keep everybody informed on what is happening and I encourage you to let us know what you think of the changes!

Online Librarian Chat: That New Box on the Homepage

As you may have noticed, there is a new box on the Allen Library homepage. Look to the right of this text to see a picture of it (this one is just an image, so you have to go to the Allen homepage to actually use it). For those of you who were familiar with the box that used to be on our homepage, it still serves the same purpose. It allows you to chat with a library staff member online. You simply type a message in the bottom section of the box, press Enter on your keyboard, and wait for a reply. We didn't just change the look of the box, however; there are several new features that make this a huge improvement.

1) Multiple library staff members can receive your message at the same time, so it's much more likely that your question will be answered promptly.

2) Whoever answers your question can "transfer" the chat to another staff member if they decide that someone else is better suited to answer the question. This improves the chances of you receiving the best possible answer.

3) We can email the transcript of the chat to another staff member, so even if the best person to answer the question is not currently available, we can still send your question to them.

4) You can pop the chat out of your current browser window by clicking on the green arrow: This will allow you to continue navigating our website as we answer your question without worrying about losing the chat box.

You'll probably see this chat box appearing in other places on our website, and each one will be designed to send questions to those staff members who are best equipped to answer questions about the topic at hand. We expect this tool to be very valuable. I encourage you to try it out, even if it is to just say hi. Please let us know what you think about it!

New Releases

Greetings from the backroom, once again. As you probably know, the backroom is where new items come to get all the trappings of the Allen Library and be released. But since you aren't waiting on the shelving carts for Jen or me to bring these new items out for your perusal, I thought you might like to know what some of them are.


I.X.1905 "Sonata" / Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) M23 J33 S1

This is a beautiful Bärenreiter Urtext edition published in 2005. It features a lengthy introduction to the piece with bibliography. The Sonata itself is a devastating work, based on the unjust murder of a university student in Brno. If you haven't heard it yet, listen to Ivan Moravec's interpretation available on Naxos.


On An Overgrown Path / Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) M25 J33 O5

This is also a Bärenreiter Urtext edition with a rich and dark purple cover. The lengthy preface contains much valuable information, and again there is suggested reading. On An Overgrown Path is in two series, with an additional set entitled "Paralipomena." The first series is a collection of short pieces with descriptive titles (e.g. Words fail!, Unutterable anguish, The barn owl has not flown away!), but the remaining compositions only have tempo indications as identifiers. Janáček's piano music is extraordinary. Piquant, nervous, innocent, delicate, quiet. Do check it out.


Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora vol. 4 M21 A378 V4
Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora vol. 5 M21 A378 V5
Senku / William Chapman Nyaho MD21 C436 S4
Asa / William Chapman Nyaho MD21 C436 A8

William H. Chapman Nyaho, from Ghana, is an active international performer, scholar, teacher, and clinician. He compiled and edited these two volumes of piano music, both of which are classified as "Advanced." Much of the music features large spans for the hands and innovative rhythmic figures. The composers come from a wide variety of places: Nigeria, Jamaica, England, Egypt, and the U.S., among others. You may listen to many of the compositions on the two CDs as well. As Maya Angelou wrote in a review of Senku, "This CD will provide moments of discovery so delicious, that the listeners will be made to laugh out loud and to compliment not just Dr. Chapman Nyaho, but themselves at their good fortune in finding these composers and this pianist."


Piano Concerto No. 2, op. 18 / Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943) M1011 R11 C2
Romanian Folk Dances / Béla Bartók (1881-1945) M25 B29 R6

These two are replacement copies. Fortunately we had the funds available to buy new copies of these well worn compositions. The Rachmaninov is a Schirmer edition (apologies, but actually it doesn't have any unwanted editorializations!), and the Bartók is a Masters Music Publications edition.

If you aren't a pianist, don't worry. New items for all instruments are coming in all the time. Jen will let you know about some more of them soon...

D-S-C-H: A Wikipedia Story

Back in March 2009, I wrote about a post called Why I Love Wikipedia. In this post, I discussed how Wikipedia can be used as a research aid without breaking the cardinal rule of not directly citing Wikipedia. A great example of this came up recently. One of our patrons was wondering how he could find the correct terminology for a compositional technique. While he was partially wondering how one would do this in general (when you know what you're looking for but don't know what it's called), he was also wondering specifically about the technique of turning names (often the composer's own) into musical motifs. Two well known examples of this are B-A-C-H (B♭, A, C, B♮) and D-S-C-H (D, E♭, C, B♮ [for Shostakovich]). One solution might be to look in articles and books that discuss the work and see if they mention what this technique is called. Another solution, however, is to try out this newfangled Internet thing. So here's what I did:

1) First, I searched in Google for D-S-C-H.

2) The first results was the Wikipedia entry for the musical motif DSCH, so I clicked on that.

3) The second sentence of that Wikipedia entry refers to this theme as a "musical cryptogram." That sounded reasonable, so I clicked on that.

4) The entry for "musical cryptogram" seemed to describe what I was looking for, but I wanted a more authoritative source. A quick scroll to the bottom revealed a reference (all good Wikipedia articles list references!) for "Cryptography, Musical" in New Grove, 2nd ed.

5) Since we have access to New Grove through Oxford Music Online, I took a look at the "Cryptography, Musical" there and sure enough, that's exactly the term I was looking for. Also, the New Grove article had much more information than the Wikipedia article!

So, with very little effort, I was able to use Google and Wikipedia as research tools while still ending up with a highly authoritative source to answer the question. Consider this encouragement to do the same when you're doing your own research!