Music to keep you motivated

On most of the students that work here at the Music Library, the look of happiness and excitement for the fall semester has turned into a look of questioning, tiredness, and wishing that fall break would hurry up and get here. It's sort of that mid-way lull that happens in every semester. So, I thought I'd survey the student employees to see what music keeps them motivated or helps them to stay focused when studying. Check some of these out and see if they help you too!

Chanticleer "Out of this World"
CD 1390


American Variations
CD 1956


New Century Saxophone Quartet "Art of the Fugue"
CD 7175


Brahms' Symphony no.4 (First and Last Movements)
CD 5044


Carmina Burana
CD 4952


Dvorak Stabat Mater
CD 3597


Bach "French Suites" performed by Glenn Gould
CD 4153


If you have specific CDs that you like to help you study or that motivate you, let me know! Click here to email Ashlie!

Welcome to Fall Semester!

It's that time again! Everyone's busy scurrying about campus, worried about homework, scheduling in enough practice time and time to socialize. Don't stress yourself---check out our LibGuides! We now have two music guides and more on the way.

New to both guides is the Fall Seminar schedule. Now you have no reason to miss! The LibGuides have lots of sources for homework help and even ideas that might start you researching something new.

Know of a good source, website or something else that would be helpful to include in one of the Music LibGuides? Let me know!

More news from us

This summer has absolutely flown by!



It seems so hard to believe that Welcome Week and Move-in Day are just around the corner.

Before you pack up your computer and head to campus, I wanted to share some neat things with you!

1)We're still constantly looking for new ways to improve our webpages. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please email me or use our handy online suggestion box!

2)We've added new electronic resources to make your life easier.

3)

The Music Library is on facebook. You should become a fan! We hope you'll use this page to stay up-to-date with our hours, events and other need to know info.

4)This fall we're going to have some AMAZING exhibits and events in the library. Stay tuned or you'll really miss out!

As always, we're here for you. Whenever you have a suggestion, comment, or other thought, we'd love to hear it. If you get to campus before August 21st, please stop by the library and introduce yourself (if you're new) or say hi (if you're not new)!

Best wishes for an excellent fall!
Ashlie

School's out!

Gosh where did the spring semester go??

While you've been out sunning yourself or working hard at your summer job, we've been here making changes to improve the Music Library!

Here are some things we've been working on:
*USC's library catalog has a new look! We hope you'll find it more user friendly.
*The Music Library home page also has a new look. We've given you easier access to the best research databases for music, added a "New" box to keep you up-to-date, and also added a suggestion box. Feel free to leave us a comment!
*We've added a video tour of the Music Library.
*Our student workers are currently busy cleaning, scanning, organizing, digitizing and updating lots of things around the library.

We're all working hard to give you the best Music Library possible!!
Please have a wonderful and safe summer!

Changes

It's that time of year....birds chirping, flowers blooming, and campus starts perking up with the changes that come with spring and summer.

Speaking of changes, we've made some changes to the Music Library Homepage. We've added a suggestion box because we want to hear from you! It only takes a minute, and your input will help us improve the library.

Hope to hear from you soon!

How to tell that the following isn't a cd...

[Click to enlarge]
The above is a record from the catalog of an LP.
Note the date, size/rpm, and catalog number.

When looking for a compact disc, carefully read the online catalog record. If the call number is higher than 9500, or has a date earlier than 1980, it's not going to be a CD.

Compact Discs ALWAYS have the word "Compact Disc" just before the call number. For instance, "Compact Disc 3015" is the call number for the "[Percy] Grainger Plays Grainger" CD.

Note the date, size and catalog number of the item below.

Copyright Fair Use

If you haven't seen our video on copyright, it's just a few posts down. At the time we filmed it, I really couldn't find a clear example to use to talk about "fair use."

Fair use is a buzzword often used in libraries and educational settings. This buzzword is often used in a context to make copyright-questionable actions seem not so questionable. Since the actual laws are not clear, any challenges to copyright claimed as fair use must be tested on a case by case basis.

However, today I was looking at the older entries on boingboing.net. (This blog is written by six technology journalists, experts, authors, contributors and editors of major information sources such as Wired, Popular Science, MSNBC, New York Times, the Washington Post, New Scientist, Business 2.0, and so many more.)

On boingboing, they link a New York Times debate between a lawyer of NBC Universal and a professor at Columbia Law School on fair use in the 21st century.

The Lawyer's stance:
"...Fair use is not a “right,” a misconception and misstatement frequently made these days. Fair use permits use of portions of a work under limited circumstances.... Because fairness cannot be reduced to a set of bright line rules, whether a use is fair is determined on a case by case basis.... The Copyright Act sets out a four factor test (although other factors can be considered). The factors include the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the original work, the amount taken from the existing work and the importance of what is taken and the effect of the use on the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. Thus, as a legal matter, a case-by-case analysis remains the standard."

The Professor's take:
"... a simpler principle for fair use: work that adds to the value of the original, as opposed to substituting for the original, is fair use. In my view that’s a principle already behind the traditional lines: no one (well, nearly no one) would watch Mel Brooks’ “Spaceballs” as a substitute for “Star Wars”; a book review is no substitute for reading [a book]. They are complements to the original work, not substitutes.... Fan guides like the Harry Potter Lexicon or Lostpedia are not substitutes for reading the book or watching the show.... On the other hand, its obviously not fair use to scan a book and put it online, or distribute copyrighted films using BitTorent."

So, things still aren't 100% clear to the common person, but again, "it's better to be safe than sorry" when it comes to copyright laws.

Have a great weekend!