Librarians at the Parkway Central Music Department are rolling out a new media literacy program for teens.  Music Critics' Roundtable offers young people a chance to share music with each other at the library, learn to listen critically, and ultimately to produce new digital art and commentary inspired by the experience.

Like most learning opportunities at the library, this is a flexible program.  As experts and educators, librarians will guide discussion and teach the necessary tools.  Learners will take these prompts and deploy them for their own ends.

We recently discovered how wonderful this relationship of discovery between librarian and library patron can be when we had our pilot experiment on Friday, April 5th, 2013.  The Parkway Central's Children's Department reached out to the Music Department to see if we had any ideas for collaborative programs with their elementary and middle school patrons.  Even though we developed Music Critics' Roundtable as a teen program, we thought "why not see what would happen when we discuss music with young children?"  It gave us an opportunity to test our equipment and our methods prior to the program's debut.

To see what the younger kids got up to on April 5th, check out this brief video of the experience:

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This program doesn't require expensive or flashy equipment to produce.  It mostly takes a place to talk and music to discuss.  With smart phones, the technology to capture photo, sound and video lives in the pockets of more and more people - especially young people.

There are many free tools you can use to edit digital content.  For an example see the Youtube Video Editor. However, we've found it easiest and most within the spirit of the Free Library to use an open source operating system for artists' called Ubuntu Studio to run an older library laptop.

In fact for many patrons struggling to keep up with the digital divide, Linux-based operating systems can be a wonderful way to unlock the potential of aging equipment.  We have excellent books on the topic if you'd like to get started on your own.

For a real behind the scenes look at the process of designing this piece of library curriculum, be a fly on the wall of one of our early staff planning sessions:

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As young music fans at the library step into the public arena of music criticism, we’ll be sure to make the products of their conversations available online.  We’ll host Music Critics' Roundtable for teens each Wednesday in May from 3:30-5:00 in the Teen Center in Philbrick Hall.  Stay tuned for more in the coming months!

On Sunday March 24th, Bassoonist Raymundo Jacinto and the Parkway Central’s Music Department introduced the first experiment in what we hope will become a series of monthly readings and performances from the chamber music repertoire.  For some brief highlights and to hear from Ray about this program, please enjoy this brief video:

The Free Library of Philadelphia invites local musicians to read from music discovered in our Chamber Music Collection.  This circulating collection of individual parts from around 30,000 works of the chamber repertoire serves ensembles ranging between 1 and 10 instruments.  Musicians interested in participating should contact the Music Department for information on finding and taking home works from our collection to prepare for future readings:

erefmus@freelibrary.org

or

215-686-5316

The second reading in this series will be Sunday April 21st from 2 - 3 p.m. in room 108 next to the Home Page Cafe inside the Parkway Central Library.  We hope to see you there.

Tax season is here, and as usual Philadelphians are flocking to every branch and regional library, as well as the Parkway Central Library, with questions about filing.  Unfortunately, librarians won't do your taxes for you.  However, as masters of the information universe, we can connect you the best resources on this (or any other) topic.  When it comes to taxes and the information you need for getting them done, first and foremost we'd like to spread the word about free tax filing options:

Solutions for Progress, a Philadelphia based public policy and technology firm, runs a robust and completely free eFile web application for state and federal returns for anyone with an adjusted gross household income under $60,000 called…

The Benefit Bank

It’s true that there are some forms and some tax situations which are too complex for this website.  But most Philadelphians are likely to be well served by its step-by-step guided movements through the most common tax situations.  All users should be encouraged to read the self-service website carefully, and follow all directions closely, as one would with any tax preparation software.  Staff at the libraries can help you find and access the website from our public computers, but library patrons should expect to be patient.  It may take several computer sessions to successfully do your own taxes using the Benefit Bank.  As you might expect, librarians cannot advise you on your taxes or tax law, but rather we’ll guide you to resources that can help.

For example, in order to receive intensive one on one help with taxes, Solutions for Progress maintains a database of community organizations that do provide tax and benefit counseling using their software for people who qualify:

Benefit Bank Tax Counseling Sites Database

The Campaign for Working Families maintains another excellent listing of tax counseling and preparation sites:

Campaign for working Families Database

Because of the tax legislation that was passed on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day the Government Printing Office has not been able to print and deliver to us many of the paper forms and instruction booklets we normally offer the public.  So the Government Publications Department at the Parkway Central Library, the branches, and the regional libraries have not been able to make available any hardcopy forms for distribution.  At this point, GPD at Central estimates that the federal forms will be available in late February, and the Pennsylvania state forms and Rent Rebate / Property Tax booklets will be available in mid to late February.  IRS forms are available electronically for printing at the IRS’s website, much like the Pennsylvania forms.

The truly hardcore tax nerd should explore our catalog of physical and electronic books, magazines, videos, et cetera for the deepest insights into the history, the present, and the future of taxation.  Good key words on the subject of taxes include:

Taxation

Tax Planning

Income Tax Law and Legislation United States

From the comfort of your home, we particularly recommend checking out eBooks on EBSCOhost a database of electronic books in our Digital Media Downloads section of our website. After entering your library card and PIN, you’ll find many interesting titles on taxes just by searching.

Good luck to everyone this tax season, from the Free Library of Philadelphia!

[Images from FLP Digital Collections]

Tags: databases

Can a great urban library such as the Free Library of Philadelphia "remember" a musician?  With yesterday's passing of Dave Brubeck (B. Concord, CA, Dec 6 1920; d. Norwalk, CT, Dec 5 2012), we couldn't help but reflect upon the role that the library has as a kind of memory machine.  The Music Department librarians at the Parkway Central Library in particular command a wide range of resources capturing the long life and prolific career of this influential "intellectual" jazz musician.  From the comfort of your own home, you too can explore some of these resources from a computer if you have your library card and PIN in hand.

Let your tour of the life of Dave Brubeck begin where any research project might: with a good authoritative encyclopedia.  The Free Library subscribes to many electronic databases including the comprehensive Biography in Context.  You'll find it under "Biographical Resources" on the database page.  Searching "Brubeck, Dave" yields entries from several encyclopedias.  The most extensive article comes from the Encyclopedia of World Biography and includes a thorough overview of his career, its context within Pop Culture, as well as a decent bibliography of books and magazines on Brubeck. Which by the way are also available via the Free Library.    Although Biography in Context's strength lies in its collection of high quality electronic encyclopedias, the database often supplements older entries with more recent magazine and newspaper articles, radio excerpts, and even scholarly journal articles. 

While doing your research, you may want to listen to Brubeck's music.  We subscribe to an excellent streaming music service from Alexander Street Press called Music Online.  We've compiled two playlists of Brubeck's work.  The Dave Brubeck Chronology is the longest and presents albums in date order.  Provocatively, it begins with the musical background of his mother, Elizabeth Brubeck, who studied under Dame Myra Hess.  Hess's piano arrangement of Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" seems like a fitting beginning track for a Brubeck chronology. As a young adult, Brubeck's own focused musical studies under Darius Milhaud leads us to include a short work for Saxophone by Milhaud which suggests some interesting questions about the musical paths artists may take across generations. It's after Milhaud's "Vif" that we enter the meat of an historical journey through the Brubeck repertoire. Significant works from 1954-1976 are not yet available from the Music Online database (though the actual recordings are available at the Library). Nevertheless, there is much of interest to listen to from the earliest days of his recorded career as well as works from his mature later phases.

The second playlist is a bit of a potpourri of interesting odds and ends from Music Online.  Dave Brubeck et cetera begins with Eastern Kentucky University Faculty Brass Quintet's recording of "Blue Rondo alla Turk", continues with a fascinating radio interview with musical interludes by Dave Brubeck and Marian McPartland, and it ends in the holiday spirit with Brubeck's stimulating take on "We Three Kings". 

These digital resources only make up a portion of what's available from the Library on Brubeck.  A search of our catalog reveals that we offer at least 48 audio recordings/CDs/LPs/, 23 Scores, 8 books, and 2 DVDs with at least some content on Dave Brubeck.  At right, you can see a small sampling of some of these treasures.  The Music Department at the Free Library of Philadelphia has such an extensive collection of materials that it hasn't even been humanly possible to digitize all of our catalog of records.  As you can see in one of the images to the right, a card catalog is necessary to get a full picture of our holdings.  Unfortunately, our unique and precious vinyl collection must stay in the building.  Fortunately though, we have turntables for music scholars and lovers to listen to a broad range of 20th Century recordings.  Please pay us a visit, and we can teach you how to navigate this colossal memory machine that is the Free Library of Philadelphia. 

Tags: databases, music