Word on the Street

Scheduled maintenance on Saturday, July 24

On Saturday, July 24, 2010, we will be performing scheduled maintenance on all Alexander Street collections. While we do not expect any major service outages, access may be disrupted sporadically between the hours of 8 AM and 4 PM EDT / UTC-4.

We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause. As always, we'll try to keep any periods of downtime to a minimum, but please plan accordingly.

If you have any questions prior to the scheduled maintenance, or if you experience problems after the times listed above, please contact Customer Support. If you are the technical contact at your library and would like to receive email notifications about future service interruptions, please sign up here.

Streaming music collections go mobile

We've just enabled mobile access to ALL of our streaming music collections, making it possible for patrons at subscribing libraries to listen using internet-enabled smart phones and other mobile devices. Mobile access options include QR codes (like the one below), automatic email or SMS text delivery, and navigating to a mobile-friendly URL. Every recording, album, and playlist can now be accessed on-the-go.

The QR code above can be scanned with with your smart phone, and will connect you directly to an e-album of music from the movie Pride & Prejudice. The e-album can then be streamed on your mobile device through August 31, 2010. QR readers are readily available as free or inexpensive add-on applications, and many mobile phones come with QR readers pre-installed. If your 3G mobile device is connected to the web but does not have a camera, you can simply go to http://goasp.it/austen to stream the e-album. To see other working examples of QR codes, check out the Resource Shelf.

Later in 2010, Alexander Street video collections will be streamed to mobile devices. For more information on mobile access, read the press release.

New performances in Theatre in Video

US and Canadian subscribers to Theatre in Video will notice that the online collection was recently updated with 23 new titles. The newly added films come from the Broadway Theatre Archive and include works by Edward Albee, Jean Anouilh, Eugene O’Neill, Lanford Wilson, Arthur Miller, William Saroyan, Neil Simon, Anton Chekhov, Thornton Wilder, and Wendy Wasserstein, among others.

Featured actors include Geraldine Fitzgerald, Linda Hunt, Meryl Streep, Alfre Woodard, John Lithgow, Jeff Daniels, Faye Dunaway, Kevin Kline, Frank Langella, Blythe Danner, Olympia Dukakis, Susan Sarandon, Harvey Keitel, Sir John Gielgud, and Sir Ralph Richardson.

Titles include Death of a Salesman, The Skin of Our Teeth, The Time of Your Life, Uncommon Women and Others, The Seagull, An Enemy of the People, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide, Fifth of July, The Good Doctor, and The Pirates of Penzance.

Customers outside of the US and Canada will see these films added to the collection shortly. For more information on Theatre in Video, and to request a free trial or price quote for your library, please email sales@alexanderstreet.com.

Ethnographic Video Online continues to grow

Since launching in February of 2010, Ethnographic Video Online has grown by more than 100 titles by important filmmakers like David MacDougal, David Plath, John Bishop, and Timothy Asch. This popular online collection now features over 400 titles equaling 270 hours of video, and is continuing to grow.

The recently added films include span from 1968 up to the present day, and cover every corner of the world, from Switzerland to Niger, Argentina to Newfoundland, Japan to Kenya, Belize to Zanzibar, Papua New Guinea to Portugal. Titles include Harambee (1974), Ajishama, The White Ibis (2003), Being Innu (2007), The Last Window (1987), Tarahumara: Festival of the Easter Moon (1976), Taking Pictures (2001), and Friends, Fools, Family: Rouch’s Collaborators in Niger (1992).  Also included now are the early films of Robert Flaherty, Nanook of the North (1922) and Louisiana Story (1948), and our first previously unreleased film, Urban Garden (2006), by Jay Sokolovsky.

For a detailed list on newly added films, visit Ethnographic Video Online's What's New page. You can also follow our anthropology editor on Twitter @EthnoVideo.

Ethnographic Video Online is available to libraries and academic institutions worldwide. To request a free trial or price quote, email sales@alexanderstreet.com.

Celebrate Bastille Day with a free streaming playlist

We're celebrating Bastille Day by offering a free streaming playlist for your mobile device. Simply scan the QR code below with your smartphone, or visit http://goasp.it/july14 on your 3G mobile device, and listen to music celebrating le quatorze juillet.

This free playlist can be streamed on your mobile device through August 15. Enjoy and bonne écoute!

134 hours of video added to American History in Video

American History in Video was recently updated with 134 hours of additional footage. The collection currently features over 4,800 videos totaling 1,215 hours.

The newly added videos include newsreel and archival films from The Big Picture, Universal Newsreels, and the Longines Chronoscope series. Additional documentaries from The History Channel® and PBS's "American Experience" series have also been added. A more detailed list of the newly added content can be seen here.

For more information on American History in Video, including free trials and price quotes for your library, please email sales@alexanderstreet.com.

And if you'd like Sneak Peek access to the forthcoming World History in Video, you can sign up here.

Underground and Independent Comics has new content and features

Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels has been updated with thousands of pages of new comics and enhanced features that make the collection even more powerful. Underground and Independent Comics currently features about 32,000 pages of content, and is growing to include more than 75,000 pages upon completion.

Recently added content includes 45 new issues of The Comics Journal, which has never before appeared in a searchable, digital format. Also available now is Seduction of the Innocent by Dr. Frederick Wertham, which led to the Senate hearings that led to the formation of the Comics Code Authority.

Newly added features make the collection make it even easier to search and browse. The text of all secondary materials, including The Comics Journal, us now fully searchable. There are also new browse categories, including "Character", "Subject", and "Genre".

You can now follow our comics editor on Twitter @Urqness.

Underground and Independent Comics is available to libraries and academic institutions worldwide. Email sales@alexanderstreet.com to request a free trial and a price quote for your library.

The Sixties grows by over 10K pages

An exciting new update of The Sixties has just occurred, with new content available from Ramparts Magazine and partnering archives and institutions, as well as improved functionality.

In partnership with The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, The Sixties now features the first set of materials from the Sexual Freedom League. These documents highlight the League's unique perspective on the sexual revolution, and more material will be added soon.

Also available are materials from the Nettie Feinberg Button Collection and the Radical Education Project Collection, courtesy of Stony Brook University.

And over 100 issues of the groundbreaking Ramparts Magazine are now included in The Sixties, with more to follow.

In an effort to make all of the images, text, and ephemera in The Sixties easily readable, we've added new functionality that allows all content to be viewed as clear, navigable images in addition to text.

 

The newly added icons let you toggle between 4 viewing options, select how many images you see at a time, and zoom and rotate.

With this update, The Sixties now includes over 67,000 pages from 1,345 sources. For more information, or to request free trial access, please contact sales@alexanderstreet.com.