Classical Music Library

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Classical Music Library: streaming audio of beautiful music!

For listening pleasure, cultural stimulation, classroom enrichment, and study and research, Temple University Libraries are pleased to announce the addition of Classical Music Library to our electronic resources. Classical Music Library provides streamed audio of an extensive array of classical music repertoire. Listeners can browse composers’ works, or search for music by instrument, period, title, genre, or performer. The “folders” feature allows each person to construct their own individualized playlists, or to take advantage of ready-made “themed” playlists. These themed playlists include the major anthologies used to teach the history of music as well as playlists for specific artistic movements, composers, artists, genres, music appreciation, mood music, music for occasions, and period music. In addition, Classical Music Library contains a reference section with information and images about composers, music history, and musical terms.

Classical Music Library is available here.

For help using this service, questions, and/or feedback, contact Anne Harlow.

Enjoy!

—Anne Harlow

PA County Histories to 1900

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The Libraries are pleased to announce the acquisition of Pennsylvania County Histories to 1900. This database provides full-text access to PA county histories written during the late 19th Century. Philadelphia, Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties all receive extensive coverage. Researchers will appreciate the inclusion of beautiful period maps, illustrations, and portraits of individuals. The histories are our main source of information about important local citizens, some of whom received little or no coverage in the regional and national press of the day.

Observes Temple historian Greg Urwin, “Nineteenth century county histories customarily listed the names of all the men who enlisted in volunteer units, and often gave their service records. These books also often contained brief biographies of prominent locals (usually men) and descriptions of prominent businesses.”

For more on the history of Philadelphia and surrounding counties, check out the following titles in the Diamond catalog:

Berks County (Pa.) — History
Bucks County (Pa.) — History
Chester County (Pa.) — History
Delaware County (Pa.) — History
Montgomery County (Pa.) — History
Philadelphia County (Pa.) — History

—David C. Murray

Infomine: A “Library Catalog” for Web Sites

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Instructors usually experience frustration when students turn first to Google and other non-vetted sources of information for papers and research projects. Most history professors, for example, would greatly prefer that students not cite anelementary school project on Abraham Lincoln. (Yes, such things have been known to happen.) Let’s face it: The vast majority of web sites indexed by Google are inappropriate for college-level research. And yet the benefits offered by digital information sources are undeniable. What to do about this dilemma?

Typically, concerned instructors require students to use a prescribed set of sources vetted by them (or by a librarian). Another solution well worth considering, and one that allows for greater student autonomy, is to use a directory of scholarly web sites. Services such as the Internet Public Library, Librarian’s Index to the Internet, WWW Virtual Library, INFOMINE, Internet Scout Project, Argus Clearinghouse, Digital Librarian, BUBL Information Service (U.K.) and others, diligently strive to separate the Internet wheat from the chaff. INFOMINE — whose tag line is “Scholarly Internet Resource Collections” — will be most useful to academic researchers.

“INFOMINE is a virtual library of Internet resources relevant to faculty, students, and research staff at the university level. It contains useful Internet resources such as databases, electronic journals, electronic books, bulletin boards, mailing lists, online library card catalogs, articles, directories of researchers, and many other types of information” (Infomine Welcome).

Conceptually it helps to think of directories as library catalogs for web sites rather than print books and journals. Thus, INFOMINE is to scholarly web sites what the Diamond catalog is to Temple’s print holdings. INFOMINE permits access to its records through title, author/publisher, subject (Library of Congress Subject Headings, or LCSH), assigned keyword, description/abstract, and a “full-text” search. What is more, INFOMINE allows users to browse through an alphabetical listing of all titles, authors, LCSH headings, and keywords used in the database! It can be said without exaggeration that INFOMINE’s search and retrieval capabilities are easily on par with those of most modern library catalogs, such asDiamond.

In sum, human-powered directories of the type discussed above provide a respite from the dubious results often obtained through software-based search engines such as Google. The various web directories (or catalogs) do suffer from a lack of standardization in the way metadata is searched and presented; novice researchers might find it difficult to quickly switch from one service to another. Students who make the effort will nonetheless discover the benefits of incorporating directories into their research repertoire. Professors, meanwhile, will just be happy that students are using appropriate sources while simultaneously developing their information literacy skills.

—David C. Murray

Find History Dissertations

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Researchers often ask me how to access history theses and dissertations. The tips in this post will help anyone easily find dissertations produced by history graduate students at Temple and other institutions. For works created under the auspices of Temple’s History Department, use the Diamond catalog. A complete, chronological list of the nearly 300 Temple history dissertations cataloged since 1973 (newest to oldest) can be viewed by clicking here. To search within this list, perform a keyword search in Diamond as follows (copy/paste into Diamond):

s:”History — Temple University Theses.” AND [change to keyword of choice]

Sample Searches:

s:”History — Temple University Theses.” AND military

s:”History — Temple University Theses.” AND war

s:”History — Temple University Theses.” AND women

s:”History — Temple University Theses.” AND mexico

Note that in a Diamond keyword search, “s:” tells the computer to return only those records that match a specific subject heading, in this case “History — Temple University Theses”. This particular search will also include dissertations created under the auspices of the Art History Department (i.e. Art — History — Temple University Theses).

“Digital Dissertations is the definitive guide to more than 2 million doctoral dissertations and master’s theses. Digital Dissertations help you identify more than 90 percent of the doctoral dissertations accepted each year in North America. The database also covers thousands of dissertations and theses from around the globe. Each dissertation published since July 1980 includes a 350-word abstract written by the author. Master’s theses published since 1988 include 150-word abstracts. Bibliographic citations are available for dissertations dating from 1861, and more than 55,000 new citations are added to the database every year” (UMI/Proquest).

Thousands of Digital Dissertation entries include 24-page previews of the full dissertation. Temple dissertations published since the early 1990s can be downloaded, for free, and in their entirety. The best way to find Temple history theses and dissertations in Digital Dissertations is to use the Browse feature. Choose Social Sciences and then scroll to the heading, History. Choose from General History, Ancient, Medieval, African, Middle East, Latin American, United States, etc. Narrow further by choosing “School” from the drop-down menu on the next page. In the adjacent text box enter “Temple University”.

—David C. Murray

Factiva Database, New

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The Factiva database, a product of Dow Jones and Reuters, is now available in the Library’s package of databases. It can be found on the Library Home Page, under “Find Articles”, in the alphabetical list, in the business subject menu, and in the list of new databases. The most important component of the database is the full-text of the Wall Street Journal, but that is only one of 1500 global and local newspapers, 3200 magazines, 500 newswires, 160 media programs, and thousands of Web sites included in Factiva. The database provides company background information from Reuters for more than 42,500 companies. The database is fully searchable by source, company name, industry, region of the world, and time period, using nine different language interfaces, and content is available in more than 20 different languages. An excellent (and brief) online tutorial is available. One important note: The databases is licensed to Temple University Libraries for only SEVEN (7) simultaneous users. This is a significant addition to the Library’s resources, and an important source for business news and information. In addition, the database includes many resources in other disciplines, with numerous journals in the fields of health care, tourism and recreation, sports, the arts (music, film, dance, crafts, literature), agriculture and forestry, and the media, all with global coverage. —Barbara Wright

Retrospective Indexes Online

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Temple University Libraries has recently begun access to the retrospective files of indexes that were once mainstays of many American academic libraries: Readers’ Guide Retrospective (1890-1982) Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective (1907-1984) The Readers’ Guide is important because it indexes citations to general audience magazines before the 1980’s–which is about when most electronic databases begin their earliest coverage. There are 50 periodicals indexed from 1890 to 1899 and an increasing numbers after that. Humanities & Social Sciences Indexes are indexes of more scholarly periodicals than those covered in the Readers’ Guide–a selective number of titles chosen by boards of editors and librarians over the years that fit the criteria of being both important to their respective fields and likely to be held in most academic libraries. These indexes continue today as Humanities Abstracts and Social Sciences Abstracts, to which Temple University Libraries maintains access. In their present form, they are both useful for guiding students to limited sets of well-regarded scholarly periodicals. —Rick Lezenby

History Database Trials

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The Library is running two history-related database trials: Empire Online andDeclassified Documents Reference Service (DDRS). Examine each database by clicking on its title (from this post), or by pointing your browser to the Trial Databases page. Both trials run through March 12, 2006.

Quick Overview: Empire Online will appeal to those working on European history and the Colonial and Early National Periods in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Oceania; DDRS will interest those studying American history and diplomacy during the Cold War (compare to the Digital National Security Archive).

Empire Online

By 2007, this database will consist of “over 70,000 [page] images [but not OCR-scanned texts] of original manuscripts and printed material, 1492-1962, taken from libraries and archives around the world.” The core of Empire Online consists of documents digitized from the archives of the British Library, the British National Archives (Kew) and the Bodleian Library, Oxford. To date, 463 documents have been imaged. The primary source material is supported by thirteen bibliographic essays written by historians. Each essay contains between 30 and 50 hyperlinks leading back into the primary source material. This unique arrangement means that Empire Online can be used very effectively to introduce undergraduate students to primary sources. Beyond its pedagogic value, Empire Online would no doubt delight faculty interested in easy access to a range of important primary documents in Empire Studies.

Empire Online does have its drawbacks. The most significant seems to be the lack of a full-text search engine for the primary sources. (The bibliographic essays are, however, full-text searchable.) While this problem is not fatal given the database’s extensive indexing, it is a serious oversight. Sorely missed also is a side-by-side transcription of manuscripts. This is less of a concern when viewing images of printed sources.

Declassified Documents Reference System (DDRS)

This is the online version of the long-standing print DDRS. (See the already-subscribed-to Digital National Security Archive for an example of a very similar database.) DDRS “users can query every document in the database for any name, date, word, or phrase. Searches can also be focused according to document type, issue date, source institution, classification level, date declassified, sanitization, completeness, number of pages, and document number. The database ranges from the years immediately following World War II, when declassified documents were first made widely available, through the 1970s. Nearly every major foreign and domestic event of these years is covered: the Cold War, Vietnam, foreign policy shifts, the civil rights movement, and many others.” DDRS exists largely because thousands of researchers over the years have specifically requested the included documents from various presidential libraries. On the other hand, most of the documents available via the Digital National Security Archive were originally made available through executive agency compliance with the 1966 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The two databases, though similar in purpose, are therefore unique; both are worth checking out.

Please provide feedback — favorable or otherwise — on these databases to David C. Murray, History Librarian.

New Resources in Black Studies, Agriculture, and Music

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More new resources:

— International Index to Black Periodicals (IIBP) IIBP Full Text includes current and retrospective bibliographic citations and abstracts from scholarly journals and newsletters from the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean, and full-text coverage of core Black Studies periodicals. Coverage is international in scope and multidisciplinary–spanning cultural, economic, historical, religious, social, and political issues of vital importance to the Black Studies discipline.

— AGRICOLA PlusTextThe largest online source of key agricultural journals AGRICOLA Plus (AGRICultural OnLine Access) is an extensive bibliographic database of citations to the agricultural literature created by the U.S. National Agricultural Library. It is the definitive agricultural database, providing abstracts and indexing, and full text for hundreds of resources with coverage beginning 1970. The citations describe publications and resources encompassing all aspects of agriculture and allied disciplines. ProQuest Agriculture Journals covers a wide range of agriculture-related topics, such as:

  • Animal and veterinary sciences
  • Plant sciences
  • Forestry
  • Aquaculture and fisheries
  • Farming and farming systems
  • Agricultural economics
  • Food and human nutrition

— RISM: Répertoire International des Sources Musicales = International Inventory of Musical Sources “The International Inventory of Musical Sources (RISM) is an international, non-profit joint venture which aims to comprehensively document the world’s musical sources of manuscripts or printed music, works on music theory and libretti stored in libraries, archives, monasteries, schools and private collections. The organization, founded in Paris in 1952, is the largest and the only global operation that registers written musical sources. RISM documents what exists and where it is stored.” “RISM series A/II: “Music manuscripts after 1600″ is the most comprehensive annotated index and guide to music manuscripts produced after 1600. Fifty years of careful research and joint initiatives sponsored by RISM brings together among others more than 551,000 records by over 19,500 composers into one database which can be easily searched. The manuscripts are found in over 750 libraries and archives in 31 countries…”

— African American Biographical Database The African American Biographical Database (AABD) brings together in one resource the biographies of thousands of African Americans, many not to be found in any other reference source. These biographical sketches have been carefully assembled from biographical dictionaries and other sources. The collection contains extended narratives of African American activists, business people, former slaves, performing artists, educators, lawyers, physicians, writers, church leaders, homemakers, religious workers, government workers, athletes, farmers, scientists, factory workers, and more–both the famous and the everyday person.

Digital Sanborn Maps

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Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970 provides digital access to more than 660,000 large-scale maps of more than 12,000 American towns and cities. In electronic form, Sanborn Maps take on much improved value over the microfilm versions of the same maps, allowing for greater flexibility of use and improved viewing possibilities. Users have the ability to easily manipulate the maps, magnify and zoom in on specific sections, and layer maps from different years.

Sanborn fire insurance maps are the most frequently consulted maps in both public and academic libraries. These maps are valuable historical tools for urban specialists, social historians, architects, geographers, genealogists, local historians, planners, environmentalists, and anyone who wants to learn about the history, growth, and development of American cities, towns, and neighborhoods. They are large-scale plans containing data that can be used to estimate the potential risk for urban structures. This includes information such as the outline of each building, the size, shape and construction materials, heights, and function of structures, location of windows and doors. The maps also give street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers. Seven or eight different editions represent some areas.

Textual information on construction details (for example, steel beams or reinforced walls) is often given on the plans while shading indicates different building materials. Extensive information on building use is given, ranging from symbols for generic terms such as stable, garage, and warehouse to names of owners of factories and details on what was manufactured in them. In the case of large factories or commercial buildings, even individual rooms and the uses to which they were put are recorded on the maps. Other features shown include pipelines, railroads, wells, dumps, and heavy machinery.

Founded in 1867 by D. A. Sanborn, the Sanborn Map Company was the primary American publisher of fire insurance maps for nearly 100 years.