Another Project Underway

Hello Gettysburg!  I hope everyone is having a great week.  I must have spoken too soon in my last post about the warm weather, hopefully it comes back soon.

On another note, I have embarked on another researching journey; this time focusing on "The President's Own" U.S. Marine Band.  Ever since I got to see them perform at a neighboring high school my freshmen year, I been fascinated and inspired by the level of excellence and precision that the Marine Band displays.  One day I hope to join their ranks as part of the euphonium section, but I still have a lot of work and practicing to do before I can achieve this goal.

The 1965 euphonium section
of the President's Own

The point of this project will be to collect and present some information about "The President's Own" as my way of adding to the library.  I have begun and will continue to research the history of the Marine Band, its directors (John Philip Sousa is probably the most famous, but many others made essential contributions), the musicians (particularly the euphonium section), composers and compositions, the repertoire that the band performs and how it has changed over time, smaller ensembles within the band (and maybe a little bit about service bands from the other branches), and the role of the Marine Band today.  Once all my research is done I will present it in some way that is yet to be determined.  I will provide an update in about two weeks as to my progress, and in the mean time, I highly recommend finding recordings of the Marine Band to listen to online.  Or, check out the CD collection in the library (yep that's right, we've got a few CDs by the Marine Band!)

#advertising #werk

Project: Ask Us. This project that has been in the works for quite some time is finally coming to fruition and I’m very excited about it. At the start of the semester it was very unclear what my project would be in this wide-world of librarianship and how to relate it back to the Reference Desk.  Luckily for me the Reference department has been undergoing a sort of marketing revival and I get to help.  Admittedly, I knew nothing about how to market the skills of reference librarians but after reading many articles, I think we have a winning strategy.  It will hopefully be up and running in the next month, right before finals; I will be interested to see if the desk gets much more business but it is unclear if will be from the marketing strategy or the rush to save some grades.

Speaking of finals and the end of the semester it has been interesting, as a Senior, to try and figure out; what next? I am applying to graduate school in Library and Information Science but I still need to get experience and some dollars in the bank.  Thanks to some of the reference librarians here I have found a great site that posts a majority of the open librarian positions in each state.  It is incredibly useful but at the same time it is a bit frustrating.  As any Senior knows, we are over-educated and under-qualified for a vast majority of these jobs but there are some opportunities and some are close to home. The real world is looming but with this internship I do feel confident that I will be able to find a job that will provide me with experience and eventually to a job I really enjoy.

Collection Project Completed

Hello Gettysburg!

I hope everyone had an awesome Spring Break and is enjoying the short burst of nice weather!  It's been a long time since my last post because I have been working on a month-long project, and I wanted to wait until it was complete to give the whole scoop.  Due to my interest in any and everything that has to do with the euphonium, I did a great deal of research in an effort to improve and expand upon the large collection of musical resources that the Musselman Library has to offer.
I started by making a list of ten euphonium players from around the world whose skills, styles, and techniques best show off all of the qualities of the euphonium.  I had well over twenty world class players on my list after my initial research, and it took quite a while to whittle the list down to a final count of 14.  For those interested, they are: Steven Mead, David Childs, Robbert Vos, Brian Bowman, David Werden, Adam Frey, Jukka Myllys, Demondrae Thurman, Nicholas Childs, Robert Childs, David Thornton, Leonard Falcone, Aaron Vanderweele, and Lyndon Baglin.  Using this list, I tried to find the CDs and other audio recordings that best represented each artist's individual style while showing off the cool things that a really great euphonium player can do.  This list was also hard to narrow down, as most of the artists have dozens of CDs available for preview and purchase on their respective websites.  (I highly recommend looking these guys up if you're not familiar with them--they're really good!)  Unfortunately, not all of these artists had CDs available, but audio recordings of all of them can be found either on their websites or on YouTube.
While looking for CDs, I was also researching methods books and solos. (mainly for euphonium, but some for trombone and tuba)  I compiled yet another list of the methods and etude books that a euphonium player would benefit the most from, and still another list of solos ranging in difficulty from high school level to professional.  (I became very good friends with Excel as a result of this project)
Anyway, I believe that some of the items on my lists are going to be added to the library's collection, and I highly recommend checking them out.  If you don't play the euphonium, (or even know what that is) I encourage you to check out some of the CDs that the library has, or go on to Naxos Music Library, or just search "euphonium" on YouTube.  To all other instrumentalists and vocalists: I challenge you to do some exploring in the library's collection for your instrument, and if there is something you would like that the library does not have, contact Amy Ward, the music librarian, at award@gettysburg.edu, and she will do what she can to add it to the collection.
Lastly, here are some pictures of some of the artists mentioned above!  Enjoy, and keep up the great work.

Steven Mead, England

Dr. Brian Bowman, University of North Texas

David Werden, U.S. Coast Guard Band