Dewey Music is the interface of the Internet Archive’s fabulous music library. Grateful Dead fans may know the archive.org’s great collection of the band’s live shows throughout the ages, but there are many more vintage (and contemporary) goodies nestled inside the Archive’s library. Search Dewey Music to find old school live jams or newer music such as, shall we say, one of my favorite bands, Guster and artists like, Deb Talan, and Elliot Smith.
Dewey Music basically searches through this entire list from the Archive’s website. You can listen to, download, remix, and share anything you see on this site legally and for free, which is a bonus. Dewey Music allows you to create playlists, share the music with others via Facebook, and music you choose continues to play as you search. In addition to their general search, you can browse by genre, top rated, most played and newest uploads.
So far, I’ve found Dewey Music’s search features a lil’ buggy. Searches were dropped, I had to hit “go” twice in order for results to show, and the search engine didn’t produce recordings that I could find by directly using the Internet Archive’s audio search page. Despite this, Dewey Music offers a lot of promise, however, to unlocking the fabulous goodness of the Archive’s music library.
King was recently part of their conversation series, which also includes other big-time library peeps such as Michael Stephens, Helene Bowers, Stephen Abram, and ACPL’s director Jeff Kruhl (part 1, part 2). I love this conversation series because it allows lil’ folks like myself the opportunity to hear these great speakers talk about their experiences. I am a big believer in learning from others’ experiences, and these videos offer a brief opportunity to do that.
Beyond their conversation series, the ACPL reaches out to their constituents via other videos. These videos provide opportunities for connection and transparency with their community.
A few examples of other short videos offered by the ACPL:
The state of the library – good to know in these tough economic times, especially with all the news and rumors about library closings, budget slashing, etc. In this video, the director addresses recent changes the library is facing due to a local property tax increase that has gone into effect.
Why I love being a librarian – what a great way for the ACPL community to connect to their librarians by seeing why their librarians love their job!
Geek Out – is a new series from ACPL of monthly training videos offered to ACPL staff. Its focus is technology in libraries.
For independent music fans, Uncensored Interview provides free, downloadable creative-commons licensed short videos of uncensored conversations with various bands. Their goal is to provide an opportunity for music fans to get to know their favorite bands and artists “via candid conversations that cover everything from the topical to the personal to the frivolous and absurd.” Over 1000 videos have been released.
For an example of a video from UI, here’s a short clip of Nellie McKay talking about pirating music and the Recording Industry.
I read from the Library Journal today that Boston University has approved moving to an institution-wide open access system. This decision comes one year after Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts & Sciences provided open access to their curriculum. The difference between the two is that Boston University’s open access initiative includes ALL 17 schools. (Harvard University’s policy is a little more selective at the moment – it does not include its professional schools, with the exception of its Law School).
Perusing through these sites made me curious for more information…
… What other schools are sharing content?
Many schools have sought financial assistance via the William & Flora Hewitt Foundation’sOpen Educational Resources (OER) program. The foundation is working to make high quality and educational content freely available on the web. From the link above, one can see their grantees’ proposals, which include various educational institutions seeking to increase open access opportunities for many exciting programs, for example:
AcademicEarth.org – an organization dedicated to sharing education throughout the world. They offer links to “thousands of video lectures from the world’s top scholars. ”
How freakin’ awesome is it to have free access to worldly knowledge from scholars at the greatest universities?! I can’t contain myself.
Wait, there’s more!
Want to know more about Open Educational Resources? I strongly suggest checking this out:
Dewey Music is the interface of the Internet Archive’s fabulous music library. Grateful Dead fans may know the archive.org’s great collection of the band’s live shows throughout the ages, but there are many more vintage (and contemporary) goodies nestled inside the Archive’s library. Search Dewey Music to find old school live jams or newer music such as, shall we say, one of my favorite bands, Guster and artists like, Deb Talan, and Elliot Smith.
For independent music fans, 
I read from the 
