Tag Archives: tools

Updates from the Music & Performing Arts Library

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We’ve a got a few new things happening at MPAL this semester:

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  • Listening rooms 3, 4, and 5 now have upgraded equipment with new speakers, turntables, cassette decks, and CD players. Check it out in the picture to the right, or stop by the Circulation Desk to ask for a key so you can see it in person! (Don’t forget–there are also keyboards in these rooms.)
  • The upstairs service desk is now open from 1-4pm, Mon-Fri. Feel free to check out scores there, ask about the items in our Special Collections, or just say hi!
  • Planning on checking out a show at Krannert this semester? Take a look at our monthly Krannert Library Guides for library resources about the artists, genres, works, and more.
  • We’re now circulating 5 iPads for a one week loan period. Stop by the Circulation Desk to ask about borrowing one! You can also find more information in our previous blog post.
  • Minrva, the library’s Wayfinder/GPS locator tool, now has MPAL capabilities! Use it to help you find that sneaky book or score in the stacks. More information can be found in this blog post.
  • We recently procured a new microfilm/fiche reader and scanner with some pretty cool capabilities. If you run into any issues when using it, please feel free to ask a staff member for help or view the tutorials listed here.
  • There’s a new 8″x11″ scanner on the second floor near the service desk so you don’t have to wait for the ones downstairs! We still have the two 8×11″ scanners and the large format (11″x17″) scanner in the downstairs computer area as well.

Enjoy!

New microform reader/scanner

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You might have noticed that MPAL got a new microform reader/scanner this semester. If you need help using it, feel free to ask a staff member, or check out these short YouTube tutorial videos from another library.* We have a slightly newer model of scanner, but the instructions should work the same.

How to Use the Microform Reader: Introduction

How to Adjust Images on the Microform Reader

How to Find Your Place on the Microform Reader

How to Print and Save on the Microform Reader
(This one is slightly different than our procedures, as we have a different printing system.)

Happy scanning!

*Thanks Center for Jewish History!

New printing system–release the print jobs!

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As of yesterday we have a new printing release system.

1. When you want to print a document you can choose “Print” from the file menu, use the print icon in the task bar, or use Ctrl-P as you always have.

2. Choose the print queue you want (this is different):

* Library B&W (this is the only one that will print to the MPAL printers)
* Library Color
* UGL B&W Pay
* UGL Color Pay

You can also send your job to the Library B&W queue and release it (more on that in a bit) at any of the other campus libraries. Library Color jobs can be sent from MPAL and released at any of the campus libraries with color printers (Main, UGL, ACES, Grainger).

3. You will log in with your NetID and password as you always have.

4. You will be shown the cost of the job and asked to confirm that you want to send the print job.

5. Go to the print release station of your choice (ours is at the MPAL reference desk) and log in with your NetID and password.

6. Click “Done” at the release station when you are finished. (It will automatically log you out after about 30 seconds of inactivity.)

As mentioned above, you can send a print job from MPAL and release it at MPAL or at another campus library.

If you don’t release your print job immediately, it will stay in the print queue for 12 hours. If you don’t release your job, it will leave the queue and you will not be charged.

Here are pictures of the steps.

Here is information about how to get refunds.

Here is a link to see how to print from your laptop.

MPAL Easy Search

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Are you just beginning research for a project? If so, the Easy Search tool on the MPAL homepage may help you find many of the resources you need to get started. Easy Search searches the UIUC library catalog, I-Share, dictionaries and encyclopedias, and other databases to find reference entries, books, scores, recordings, journal articles, and newspaper articles.

Easy Search is especially helpful for helping you decide which of the many tools it links to to focus on as you continue your search past the first phase.

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To use this tool, type in the Keyword, Author, or Title of the material you are looking for. After clicking “search” you will be directed to a page with links to your results.

The first section on the results page lists matches for the item in the UIUC library catalog and also in I-Share libraries. Often the results are further limited by Scores, Recording, and Film/Video. The results also include if your search was found in eBooks (including Google and Hathi Trust) or on IDEALS – the UIUC dissertation depository.

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The Easy Search also covers journals including RILM, IIMP, JSTOR, and IIPA. By clicking on the Article Matches, you will be directed to a list of the articles that contain the words you searched for.

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Finally, this tool searches through newspapers including the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the London Times. This can be very helpful if you are looking for concert reviews.

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New Online Journals and Databases Tool

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Recently, you may have noticed some changes in the way you can search for journals and databases on the library website.

The Online Research Resources (ORR) database (the yellow and blue pages!) has been replaced by the new Online Journals and Databases (SFX) database (http://openurl.library.uiuc.edu/sfxlcl3/az).

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There are a number of key differences between these sites. While ORR allowed you to easily browse all music databases, the new SFX requires you know the title of the database before you search. If you are unsure of the exact title of the resource you are looking for, the search engine provides suggestions, which can be helpful.

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For now, please try to avoid browsing SFX by subject. These listings are not precise and may give you search results that include links that are irrelevant to music, theater, or dance.

If you cannot find what you are looking for in SFX, you can also try searching:
• The “Databases by Subject” guide: http://www.library.illinois.edu/catalog/vufind/dbsubject.html
• The “Music Easy Search” module on our home page: http://www.library.illinois.edu/mux/
• The Library’s Online Catalog for database and journal titles and information

A user guide to Online Journals and Databases is available at http://www.library.illinois.edu/learn/find/onlinejnd.html.

If you have questions, please contact me at dougan@illinois.edu (tel. 244-4072).

New interface for ProQuest databases

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Do you use IIMP or IIPA or ProQuest Dissertations? If so, be prepared for a new look. It simplifies searching and expands the resources available.

IIMP contains both full-text and abstracts to articles from 1874 to the present while IIPA contains results from 1998 onward. Both resources are extremely helpful tools in music, dance, and theater research. ProQuest Dissertations includes dissertations and theses from the late 19th Century to present, many available in full text.

The banner at the top of the page offers a lot of features.

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Your Searches and Items

You can choose which ProQuest databases you want to search by clicking the “Database” link in the top left corner.

The Recent Searches link lists all recent searches, which you can review or even combine just by clicking. Selected Items keeps track of the items you flagged while searching. My Research allows you to create and access a free account, enabling you to organize, manage, and save articles. You can also link yourRefWorks account to your IIMP or IIPA account.

Translation

You can use the “Languages” link at the top right-hand corner of the page to translate the interface to a different language. After choosing an article, you can translate the text of most articles to another language.

Searching Tips

You can limit search results by:
Document Type
Reference Work
Document Feature, and/or
Language.

Be careful when limiting by Document Type (article, book, review, etc) because this will not necessarily give you the most results. The “Reference Work” limit choices provides easy access to a glossary, brief opera synopses, music fundamental terms, and a pronunciation guide.

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All search results have icons that correspond with source type (scholarly journal, trade journal, newspaper). If you are unsure of what the icon represents, you can either mouse over it or look to the right side column under Source Type. The choices in the right column also help you narrow your results to a particular type of item.

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Another way to limit your results uses the graphic at the bottom of the right hand column on the results page, which allows you to choose articles within a specific date range. This bar graph also shows when most of the articles on a subject were published.

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Search Subject Areas

A new feature allows you to select specific subject areas to search in. The column on the right-hand side of the search screen lists areas which link to relevant databases.

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This feature is not necessarily the best way to search for articles. Many of the databases included under The Arts have little to do with music; therefore searching IIMP and/or IIPA directly will yield the best results.

But, this feature does allow you to access Dissertations & Theses, which links to both ProQuest Dissertations and CIC (Big 12 School) Dissertations databases. It also allows you to access the News and Newspapers area which gives access to titles like The New York Times (historic and current issues).

Partifi: make parts from a score

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Partifi.org is a “free and automated tool for creating parts from music scores.” This tool was created by those who seek to support and encourage the study and performance of early music who found that instrumental parts were often not readily available. Not only can you upload your own score PDF, you can import public domain scores from IMSLP or browse the “publicly accessible library of user-contributed parts”.

If you upload scores and create parts from your own PDFs, please be aware that you should only do this for works for which you hold the copyright. If it is possible to purchase the parts you need, do not use Partifi to create new ones. Also, don’t forget to check the Library to see if we have parts you can check out either in print or to download from Library Music Source.

How it works

You can search Partifi to see if the parts you need are already there.
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If it’s not, you can upload your own PDF or one from IMSLP.
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Once you’ve done that, “Partifi attempts to automatically identify the position of each line. For optimal results, you may need to add, delete, or reposition the generated segments.”

The next step is to “Preview the parts for accuracy. At this stage, you can combine two or more parts into a single one (e.g., “violin I” and “violin II”), and add additional page breaks to avoid awkward page turns.”

The final step is sharing. “To distribute the partified score, simply share its download link. Be sure to respect the copyright laws of your country. To later edit the parts, add the score to your “favorites” or bookmark the score’s admin page. If we determine a score to be in the public domain, we may add the score parts to the Partifi library as a service to the music community.”

Illinois dissertations and theses in IDEALS

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Did you know that you can find dissertations and theses created here at the U of I by using IDEALS? Students can now deposit electronic copies of their dissertations and theses, which means you can find full-text versions here.

You can search or browse for publications. If you know you want a dissertation from the School of Music, for example, click on “Communities” on the left, select “College of Fine and Applied Arts”, then “School of Music,” and then “Dissertations and Theses-Music”.

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You can also enter the Dissertation and Theses community and then search or browse.

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If you are a graduate student depositing your thesis or dissertation, please do this through the Graduate College at http://www.grad.uiuc.edu/submit-etd. If you deposit electronically, once your degree is conferred, your dissertation or thesis will appear in this collection.

If you have authored a dissertation or thesis in the past at the University of Illinois and would like to see it appear here, please contact ideals-gen@illinois.edu for more information.

“Send to mobile” functionality in Classical Music Library and other ASP products

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From ASP:

We now have “Send-to-Mobile” functionality in Music Online, including all of the individual streaming music collections and some items in Opera in Video. This functionality will follow in all of our streaming video collections later this year.

What this means is that you can now send an audio track, video track, album, or playlist from our streaming collections to your mobile device to listen to later. The item that you send stays on your device for 48 hours.

Go to any of our streaming music databases and look for a cell phone icon (“Send-to-Mobile”) next to each track, album, or playlist. Wherever you see that icon you can click it and obtain a “shortlink” to send and enable playback on your mobile device.

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We provide several methods to send this link:

* We can send a text message to your mobile.
* We can email the link to your email address, which you can pick up on your mobile.
* You can enter the link URL manually into your mobile’s web browser.
* On supported devices you can scan a QR-Code directly from your computer screen. You will need to download a QR-Code reader application to do so.

At this time, this functionality is supported on:
* Apple iPhone on 3G network or better
* Mobile Device with Android OS

Shortlinks cannot be accessed outside of your institution network after 48 hours but will still be usable within it.

For more information please visit the Help page at http://muco.alexanderstreet.com/help/view/using_your_mobile_device

Improvements to Music Online

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MPAL subscribes to Classical Music Library, Jazz Music Library, and Smithsonian Global Sounds from Alexander Street Press. They have made improvements to Music Online, the cross-search platform (http://music.alexanderstreet.com) (and also to the native interfaces of each individual music collection).

Highlights of the improvements include:

* PLAY, DOWNLOAD, and ADD TO PLAYLIST icons are now filled-in blue by default. This change came from customer feedback that the gray icons were confusing and difficult to see.

* SEARCH RESULT RELEVANCY has been re-worked and improved, and relevancy is now back as the default search sort.

* SEARCH RESULTS return at the parent (album) level, with relevant child (track) results underneath.

* SEARCH TERMS ARE HIGHLIGHTED and relevant metadata is returned with search results to help understand your result.

* REFINE YOUR SEARCH USING FACETS on the right hand side of the page (as opposed to the top of the page).

* SEARCH STRING is displayed at the top of the search results page with the option to remove any field (trashcan icon) to broaden your original search.

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