Word on the Street

MARC records update for video collections

While we're waiting for the MARC records for Alexander Street's online video collections, our MARC records team has been able to provide an Excel spreadsheet for each collection listing every video title currently available together with the permanent URL for each. A number of libraries have asked for this, and we hope it helps your library improve findability for these videos while we wait for the MARC records to be completed.

To access the Excel files, please go to http://marc.alexanderstreet.com and scroll to the bottom of the page. The files are listed under "Video Collection Title/URL Lists."

The MARC records for our video collections are at the top of our priority list, and we hope to have them ready early in 2010. We're also working with OCLC to get our MARC records loaded into WorldCat, so you should start seeing our records appear there in 2010 as well.

New MARC records released

Earlier this month we released several new sets of MARC records, which are available for download now at http://marc.alexanderstreet.com. The new sets include:

• Women and Social Movements: Scholar's Edition — The first set of book-level records for this collection contains 178 records for the Scholar's Edition only. Please be aware that there are separate sets of records for the Basic Edition and the Scholar's Edition.
• Caribbean Literature — Two new sets of records have been created to replace both of the previous sets. The updated record sets fix errors contained in the previous sets.
• Classical Music Library — Two new sets of records have been created. The first is a replacement set for the previous version, and contains 350 records. It has been tested and found to work with all currently updated, standard systems. The second set is a brand-new supplementary set, containing 127 additional records that have never been released. More information about both of the Classical Music Library sets can be found here.
• Jazz Music Library — The product-level record is now available.

We'll keep you posted as more MARC record sets are released.

Remembering Claude Lévi-Strauss

By now you may have heard that French anthropologist and sociologist Claude Lévi-Strauss passed away on October 30th. Often called "the father of modern anthropology," Lévi-Strauss was an important structuralism theorist. His theories are presented in Structural Anthropology, both volumes of which are available in Alexander Street's online collection Social Theory. The complete text of Elementary Structures of Kinship is also available in Social Theory.

In addition to his own works, Claude Lévi-Strauss is discussed in the works of others, including Communication and the Evolution of Society by Jürgen Habermas and For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign by Jean Baudrillard.

Social Theory is available to libraries and academic institutions via annual subscription or a one-time purchase of perpetual rights. For more information, or to request a free trial, please email sales@alexanderstreet.com.

Music Online is going mobile!

What's better than hundreds of thousands of audio recordings, videos, scores, and pages of full-text music reference?  How about accessing it all on the go?

In 2010 Alexander Street's entire music portfolio will be accessible on iPhone and iPod Touch mobile devices. Subscribers will be able to stream music and video, access scores, search and navigate full-text reference content, and even access and edit personal playlists.

Alexander Street's iPhone and iPod Touch application will be completely free. Updating your playlists or listening to an assigned recording will literally be just a touch away. And thanks to newly developed streaming technology, you'll do it all without buffering.

Look for Alexander Street's iPhone app in 2010 on our Web site, on this blog, and through the iTunes store.