Hey kids! May 1st is RSS Awareness Day!
What’s RSS, you ask? Check out this Lawrence University page about it and subscribe to Lawrence University RSS feeds. You’ll especially want to subscribe to the feed for this blog, of course…
Category: Research
We Love the Web
Here at the Mudd we don’t think The Web is evil. In fact, its beauty lies in the fact that it makes everyone’s lives easier and more complicated at the same time. If there were no internet you wouldn’t be reading this right now. You’d have to intercept this message using your tin-foil hat.
The latest issue of the online magazine Online is featuring a subject near and dear to our hearts: research. And music research to boot: “Music to Researchers’ Ears: Ten Top Sites for Researching Music.” This helpful guide, written by a music librarian in California, runs the gamut from Mozart to world music. Unfortunately, as web resources sometimes go, one of the links she’s included is no longer valid. It’s the International Sheet Music Library Project and if you go to the site you’ll get a rather depressing message from the site’s founder explaining why he’s decided not to go on. Those who value the site’s purpose are trying valiantly to get another sponsor in spite of the threats of legal action. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, all of the other sites get the official Mudd Seal of Approval.
Adding Article Links to Moodle
You’ve found the perfect article for your class in JSTOR and now you want to add the link to your Moodle course page, but where do you find the URL? JSTOR and many (but not all) of the library databases have what they call persistent or stable URLs that you can quickly copy & paste into Moodle. Be sure to have the article links open in a new window so that students lose track of their Moodle page. Check the guide for more information.
We’re So Glad We Had That Time Together
On September 11, 1967 The Carol Burnett Show premiered on CBS. It was the first hour-long comedy-variety show to be hosted by a woman. When you think about it, the show produced theater (skits,) production numbers and musical numbers with all the trappings every week: choreography, sets, costumes by Bob Mackie, the works. Today the costs would be prohibitive and TV audiences probably would have no interest. But back then people stayed home to watch the show. Imagine doing this for a weekly TV show today.
The Paley Center for Media, formerly The Museum of Television & Radio, has an informative profile on Carol Burnett for you young folk who missed this golden age. You can also hear Carol Burnett on the original cast recording of Once Upon a Mattress.
Mozart’s Thematic Catalog
When you think Mozart’s Thematic Catalog, you naturally think Köchel. But did you know Mozart compiled his own thematic catalog? From February 1784 until December 1791 (three weeks before his death) he kept a record of his completed pieces. Here he included the dates, titles and sometimes instrumentation, along with the opening bars of each work.
The brilliant, technically advanced and well-funded people at the British Library have put together an online gallery called “Turning the Pages”. Here you can [virtually] flip through Jane Austen’s early work in her own hand; Mercator’s first atlas of Europe compiled in the 1570’s; the Diamond Sutra, the oldest printed “book” (China, 868) and Mozart’s thematic catalog, among many others.
You’ll need Adobe’s Shockwave plug-in to do the flipping. Mozart’s catalog also includes soundclips of the entries, text, and even the capability to hear the text read to you.