Call for Submissions
University of Houston Libraries Special Collections seeks stories and perspectives from UH students pertaining to the coronavirus outbreak.
It is important that the experiences of UH students during this challenging time are recorded and preserved in the University Archives. UH students are encouraged to share their stories and creative works — such as performing and visual arts, drawings, songs, monologues–of this unique moment in history for preservation and accessibility.
For more information and to submit stories, visit UH Students! Share Your Experience of the Coronavirus Outbreak.
University of Houston Libraries stands in opposition to the racism and systemic injustices that shape the lives of Black people in the United States. Black lives matter. We grieve the death of George Floyd, who belonged to the Third Ward and Screwed Up Click communities that we have been honored to work with in building the UH Houston Hip Hop Research Collection. We grieve for Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others lost to racist and police-inflicted violence. We share in the sorrow and anger of our community and stand in solidarity with protests against police brutality. This statement affirms our commitment to equity, inclusion, diversity, and anti-racist practices and our pledge to use our skills and resources to advance the sharing and production of knowledge for racial justice.
Some Good News…
Due to COVID–19 and the unavailability of print collections to users, HathiTrust is expanding access temporarily to full text!
HathiTrust is a not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries preserving 17+ million digitized items. HathiTrust offers reading access (to the fullest extent allowable by U.S. copyright law), computational access to the largest set of digitized books managed by academic and research libraries.
HathiTrust has matched the University of Houston print holdings to HathiTrust holdings, and for every match it finds, it will allow full text access to those UH titles. Based on this matching, they report that we will now have full text access to almost 48% of our print collection.
Current UH faculty, students and staff will need to login to HathiTrust, choose the “University of Houston” from the drop–down menu, then use their Cougarnet credentials to access materials.
Specifically, the University of Houston will have:
- Reading access to the book online, within a web browser.
- Ability to “check out” a copy for a limited period of time (1 hour). Access will renew automatically at the end of that hour, unless another user requests the book after that hour is over.
If you have additional questions, please feel free to reach out at musiclib@uh.edu.
For UH Libraries COVID-19 updates please visit: https://libraries.uh.edu/covid-19/
For Music Library updates please subscribe to the UH Music Library Blog: https://weblogs.lib.uh.edu/music/
Take Good Care and Happy Reading!
Madelyn Shackelford Washington, Coordinator of the Music Library.
During the period of the stay at home order, the M. D. Anderson Library will be closed. The main library will close as scheduled at 10:45pm Tuesday, March 24, 2020 and will not reopen until further notice. The three subject libraries (Music, Health Sciences, and Art, Design, and Architecture) are closed and will not reopen until further notice.
The Libraries’ Covid-19 webpage has been updated to reflect closing of the physical spaces. It also provides information on the full range of virtual services that continue to be available. The page will be updated continuously.
REMOTE SERVICES AVAILABLE
- Reference and research consultations
- Instruction
- Scan and email requested book chapters from available Course Reserves
- Purchase Materials (it is likely that we will only be able to make electronic materials available)
COMMUNICATION
The Music Library’s general email address (musiclib@uh.edu) will be monitored from 8am–5pm, Monday–Friday. Emails sent to this address are forwarded to all three full-time staff.
To contact any full-time staff member of the Music Library directly please visit:
https://apps.lib.uh.edu/staff/members/department/Music-Library
To ask a question, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions page,
https://ask.lib.uh.edu/ and click “Ask Us”
Moving forward…
I hope this message finds you in high spirits and good health.
As the COVID-19 pandemic poses unprecedented personal and institutional challenges, I wanted you to let you know that effective 5pm on Friday, March 20, the Music Library will close until further notice and provide services remotely.
Please lean on us for questions about access to electronic resources, instruction requests, research consultations, literature search assistance, and more! You may contact us directly, or by using the department email, musiclib@uh.edu.
We look forward to serving the faculty, students and staff of the University of Houston during this time of transition.
Take Good Care,
Madelyn Shackelford Washington, Coordinator of the Music Library
We launched a new library search engine that simplifies the process of locating materials.
Updates will continue for the next several months.
Questions and feedback
Dear Music Library Patrons,
We are excited to announce that UH Libraries will move to a new search platform and catalog interface at the end of July. Overall, this will change how the main search on the library website functions and how you search for materials such as books, scores, and articles through the library. You can find out more information now, and get more specific details over the next couple of weeks, from our user guide.
How will this change impact you?
- If you link to specific books/resources in Blackboard or your course syllabus, you will need to update those links post-July 23rd (old links will work until Aug 30th to give you some time to transition, but they will stop working at that point)
- Your library account for book checkouts will change interfaces
- You will probably want to test out the new search to see if there any changes that you or your students need to know
What isn’t changing? These things will remain the same:
- Our ILL system, through which you can request articles, books, and other materials which UH doesn’t have access to
- Searching for articles or data through specific databases such as JSTOR, Science Direct, or EEBO
Who can you contact if things aren’t working after July 23rd?
- You can always ask for help in the music library, but if you’d like to reach out directly then the person to contact is Lee Hilyer (lahilyer@uh.edu).
If you have questions, please feel free to pay us a visit. The music library staff is happy to chat further with you to understand any questions or concerns that you might have.
This summer, UH Libraries will be implementing a new search platform that will provide a catalog with enhanced functionality. The change is expected to go live July 23, 2019.
We are very excited to introduce this new search platform called Alma. It offers all of the searching functionality of our current catalog, and will provide more effective access to all of our resources.
Information about changes and new features will be posted soon. How you access your library account, and what materials you can access, will not change.
Alma has been implemented by major research libraries across North America, including Harvard University, University of Minnesota, University of Southern California, and University of Iowa.
If you have any questions about the new search platform, please contact user experience coordinator Daniel Pshock or head of Information and Access Services Lee Hilyer.
Naxos recently made a few changes to their search engine, s
o if you notice a few differences in your Naxos search results, this could be why.. The new updates include the following:
1. Exact phrase matches are prioritized over partial word matches – i.e. search for “mozart german dances”. From the old search it could return all albums from Mozart first, then tracks with “German” and/or “Dances”, but not from Mozart, since it searches word per word. In the new search it considers the exact phrase prior to looking for matches of every single word. This behavior reduces the unnecessary results.
2. It searches for all information within the album – Some results may seem irrelevant since the album title does not contain the keywords used. However, if you open the album you can notice that there are information that inside it that matched exactly with the keywords. i.e. I searched for “the arrival of germontt”. This keyword is not found in the title but if you open the album, you can see that it actually has a track title matching the keyword.
3. Commonly searched/accessed albums are prioritized – The search will return all correct matches but the more commonly searched or accessed albums are ranked higher than the others. To trim down the results, it is encouraged to use more specific keywords, or maximize the now refined advanced search.
4. Restricted albums are no longer listed – Albums that are restricted to the user’s country will no longer be listed in the results, thus the reducing the search returns.
5. Searching for word with diacritics is now supported – Users can now search for albums, tracks, persons that are spelled with diacritics using the common English alphabets, thus returning the exact results.
It is our policy that all library users have access to materials that are complete, UNMARKED, and well-organized. Therefore, in accordance with the UH Libraries Code of Conduct, and as an extension of our Score Clean-Up and Maintenance Project, the Music Library has instituted a fine for each item that is returned to the library with writing and/or markings created by the borrowing patron.
HOW DOES THIS POLICY AFFECT YOU?
- BEFORE you bring an item to the circulation desk for check-out, carefully inspect the score and all parts for markings or damage.
- Alert Music Library Staff to all markings or damage
- Pre-existing conditions will be noted, and you will not be held responsible for them when you return the item.
- For scores returned to the Music Library with markings and/or damage that has NOT been noted by library staff:
- A fine of $10 will be applied to your account to cover the cost of erasing and repairing the item
- If the markings and/or damage are irreparable, you will be charged a replacement fee for the item