MSPAL Power
Re-launch of The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online
September 25th, 2008
Alexander Street Press just announced that the second release of The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music was launched on Tuesday.
This new release features three important enhancements:
1. Audio tracks are now available. The paper version of the Garland came with nine compact discs of music. These discs are the source of the digital audio now in the online version. The original CDs are still available at the circulation desk, call number ML100.G16 1998.
2. You can now browse by genre, cultural group, musical subject, instrument, person, ensemble, and place. I find this a lot more helpful than the free text keyword searching, which was the only way into the encyclopedia in the first release. A big improvement, but still not perfect. It’s still hard to find major sections devoted to your topic. One of the hits for a browse of “yoruba” for example is The article on Belize, which only mentions the Yoruba in passing: “Garifuna ancestry can be traced back to the Yoruba, Ibo, and Ashanti cultures of West Africa.” This is helpful information, but in the current search interface, it’s difficult to separate this granular detail from the more substantial discussions of the Yoruba you will find under the article on West Africa.
3. You can now create, annotate, and share playlists. This is similar functionality to that already present in some of the other Alexander Street Press products, like Opera in Video for instance.
As always, let me know if you have any feedback or if you have questions about this product.
Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online (through Research Port)
Press Release from Alexander Street Press
Posted by Steve in Electronic Resources, Announcements | No Comments »
