The Well-tempered Web by Alex Ross

In the spring of 2004, I made the questionable decision to start a blog. I reserved a dot-com address, signed up for an Internet-for-dummies service called Typepad, and, to the delight of more than a dozen compulsively Googling insomniacs around the world, began adding dribs and drabs to the graphomaniac ocean of the Web.

Like many people, I started blogging more

Trouble at IMSLP

IMSLP (www.imslp.org) is now the largest site of downloadable public domain scores available on the internet, with more than 15,000 scores, 9000 titles and 1000 composers.

IMSLP recently received a threat of litigation on the part of Universal Edition of Vienna Austria, who apparently wishes to enforce EU copyright laws in Canada and the USA. The site will be taken down for the next several days for maintenance and to remove certain titles in order to comply with demands in the Cease and Desist letter from UE's lawyers until volunteer attorneys at the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic of the University of Ottawa Law School can prepare an adequate response to the legal intimidation tactics employed by UE.

New Items in the Conservatory Library Collection

New Scores ! New Books ! New DVDs !! New Recordings !!

We've been busy. Check out the items we've purchased for your use!

New & Cool stuff in the Con Library ...

China Online Journals

Through November 30th we have access to China Online Journals, a major provider of full-text access to scholarly journals in Chinese, with coverage extending back to 1997.

We are interested in your feedback -- if you can read Chinese, please let us know what you think of this database!

In the Beginning ... There Were Musical Instruments

Stop in the Conservatory Library and check out the display, "In the Beginning ... There Were Musical Instruments." This exhibit was curated by Rod Knight and the students in Musical Instrument Research: Organology Seminar & Practicum (ETHN 302). The students in this class are getting hands-on experience cataloging and classifying all of the non-western instruments in Oberlin's collection.

The Roof That Jazz Is Raising By Marci Janas ’91

“A building should broadcast its purpose to the world,” says Paul Westlake, who leads the architectural team designing the Phyllis Litoff Building, a new home for jazz studies at Oberlin.

With that in mind, Oberlin’s charge to his architectural firm, Westlake Reed Leskosky, was ambitious: craft a building to house jazz studies and the Conservatory’s academic programs in music history and music theory, a world-class recording studio, and the largest privately held jazz recording collection in the United States; read more of this article

Iberia by Albeniz on display in the Conservatory Library

Hoping to create “Spanish music with a universal accent,” Albeniz composed the suite of twelve piano pieces that comprise Iberia a century ago (December 1905-January 1908). The illustration by Albeniz’s daughter appearing here and on the cover of the featured facsimile edition was originally seen on the publication of the first two of four books of these impressions of Spain.

The Conservatory Library's Special Collections are the focus of the year-long series of exhibits, Bibliorarities. The exhibits are on view in the cases adjacent to the Conservatory Library's Circulation Area during all opening hours. Check out the year-long schedule at Bibliorarities.