General Information
Students can find quick information guides, detailed holdings information about the newest UMKC library acquisitions, and can request books online directly by using the MERLIN/ MOBIUS online library systems linking over 50 academic and research libraries in Missouri from home, 24/7.
Students can find books, articles, scores, listening, and viewing reserve materials in one area in the Music/Media library. Reserve operations are streamlined to provide efficient service for busy Conservatory students.
The Music/Media library collection includes works by Conservatory of Music faculty, including over 120 scores and sound recordings by James Mobberly and over 50 works by Chen Yi.
Students and faculty can access online databases from office or home, or in the library, including Grove Music Online, International Index to Music Periodicals, International Index to Performing Arts, Music Index Online, Musical America, RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, RIPM Biblioline for 19th-century music, and Arts and Humanities Citation Index. These titles and many other online resources are available at UMKC through paid institutional subscriptions.
The UMKC Friends of the Library support Conservatory of Music programs through their Annual Gifts. Recent purchases include: J.S. Bach Haenssler Classics (172 CDs); Jamey Abersold jazz set; the complete Bobby Watson set with Art Blakely; music therapy titles, and facsimiles editions of important musical works.
Conservatory graduate Janet Kraybill's dissertation project (2000) to transcribe into modern notation the Spanish book of Gregorian Chants is accessible online at the Libraries' website for Special Collections or through the MERLIN online catalog, where the performance recital can be heard while viewing the score. Robert Ray, Special Collections Librarian, demonstrated this digitization project at the Mid-America Medieval Association annual meeting, February 2003.
Students can use four new multimedia PC workstations in the Music/Media area to write assignments, prepare presentations, access the library system, and the Internet, and specialized CD/DVD titles. More PC workstations are in the Information Commons, on the next floor.
The Marr Sound Archives, a unit of Special Collections, houses over 265,000 sound recordings in all historic formats, including historic opera collections (Fred Callend); popular music (1890s to the 1980s); Smithsonian folk music recordings; jazz; and the Frank Driggs jazz oral history collection.
You can listen to the sounds of Kansas City jazz online at the website "Club Kaycee, the history of Kansas City Jazz, " featuring articles and biographies written by Chuck Haddix, with streaming audio selections. Club Kaycee is hosted by the Marr Sound Archives at < http://www.umkc.edu/orgs/kcjazz/
Kansas City's musical history is documented in the online exhibition: "Kansas City: Paris of the Plains, 1920-1940, " with links to streaming audio selections of featured musicians on the web at http://www.umkc.edu/lib/spec-col/ParisOfThePlains/WebExhibit/index.html.
The Kenneth J. LaBudde Special Collections houses historic collections of sheet music, including over 60,000 items in the Popular American Sheet Music Collection, over 5,900 titles in the Dance Band Collection, and 650 Kansas City-published titles in the KC Sheet Music Collection. The collections of Mel Lewis, Raymond Scott, and Bob Brookmeyer are also in Special Collections.
The Paul Creston (American composer, 1906-1985) collection of over 45,000 items, including manuscript scores, published music, books, performances of his compositions, sound recordings, photographs and letters is in Special Collections.
A copy of the 1841 edition of the Missouri Harmony, a collection of psalms, hymn tunes, and anthems can be consulted in Special Collections.
Compiled by Marilyn Carbonell, Assistant Director for Collection Development, UMKC University Libraries.
