The Smithsonian Folkways Recordings label includes important releases by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, and many more. There are recordings covering the folk music of many countries, political themes such as wars and protests, as well as genres such as railroad, cowboy, and childrens' songs.

We have many Smithsonian Folkways CDs and LPs in the Library, but we also have access to hundreds more through our online subscription to Smithsonian Global Sound.

You can search for this content by label, artist, or song or album title.

If you already know the name of the album, choose Browse > Album from the column on the left.

If you want to browse all of the recordings on the Smithsonian Folkways label, choose Browse > Label from the column on the left:

Then, chose Smithsonian Folkways Recordings from the list:

Next, you can get a list of the albums by title by looking at, "Narrow your search further by selecting" at the top and clicking on "Album > more..." in the pop-up window:

Then you will see an alphabetic list of all albums on that label:

Of course you can do this with all of the other labels represented in Smithsonian Global Sound as well.

Now when you search our catalog for recordings, you will find records for recordings in our online audio streaming tools Classical Music Library and DRAM (Database of Recorded American Music). Just click on the "Related URL: Online access" link.

Also, when you search Grove Music Online (via Oxford Music Online) you can click on the "Related Content" tab to find links to CML and DRAM so you can search for related audio content.

As you may have noticed, we've been having some problems with audio e-reserves this semester. They're working just fine if you use one of our computers, and usually work if you are trying to access from home. However, you might encounter problems if you are trying to access either from a Mac or via campus wireless.

We are working to fix the problems and hope to have a more stable system in the near future. In the meantime, here are two things you can try:

1) If you're having problems from home or via the wireless: Trying installing the VPN client and using that to access the audio files.

2) If you're having problems from a Mac and/or the VPN isn't solving the problem, try installing RealAlternative instead of RealPlayer.

As always, if you're having problems with any ereserves materials (or any online library resources), please just let us know! It helps to know what kind of computer, what media player, whether you're using wireless, and which audio tracks didn't work.

We thank you for your patience and apologize for this inconvenience.

It's been pretty quiet (dare I say dead?) here on the blog this semester. That's because we have been using Twitter more to send you short news bits. You can see the feed from our Twitter stream on the right side of the blog. We'll continue to use the blog when we have longer announcements or want to include pictures or screen shots to illustrate something.

You may have seen the note on the MPAL web site, but in case not, we're making some changes. We hope to streamline the site and improve findability. If there is something you'd really like to see change, or something you don't want to see change, let us know. We'll post mock-ups of the proposed redesign ahead of time so you'll know what's coming.

Well, you made it through the first week (and so did we!). If you are new to our library or just need a refresher, take a look at our welcome guide: http://uiuc.libguides.com/mpal

If you want to know what great new stuff we got over the summer, check out the New Titles List: http://www.library.illinois.edu/newtitles/

Need something and we don't have it? If you can't get it through iShare or ILL, and/or if you just really think we should have it here, suggest a purchase: http://www.library.illinois.edu/mux/services/recommend.html

If you are feeling overwhelmed and could use a little help, just ask us!

Glad you're back!

Need visual images to support your research? Use ARTstor (U of I community only, library subscription resource).

ARTstor Resources in Music History http://www.artstor.org/using-artstor/u-pdf/inter-music-history.pdf

ARTstor Resources in Theatre and Dance http://www.artstor.org/using-artstor/u-pdf/inter-theater-dance.pdf

What is ARTstor you ask?

"ARTstor is a digital library of nearly one million images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences with a set of tools to view, present, and manage images for research and pedagogical purposes."

Have fun!

Did you know that we have a large collection of early childhood music resources? You can find them in the library online catalog by doing a phrase search for "early childhood music project.

If you are only reading our blog through an RSS feed reader like Google reader you might be missing the links from our Twitter feed that appear on the righthand side of our blog page. We don't always post the same information on the blog and on Twitter, so check both to make sure you're not missing anything cool!

There are now more full text link options for the International Index to Music Periodicals (IIMP) and the International Index to the Performing Arts (IIPA) databases. If the full text of an article is available directly from one of those sources you'll still see "Full text" or "Full text-PDF" links. If the article is potentially available from another online source you'll see the blue "Discover UIUC Full Text Linking" button. If you click on it you will be given other options to locate the item online or request it via InterLibrary Loan.

If you have any questions about this, just stop by the MPAL and let us know!