The package art of R.E.M.’s swan-song compilation, Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982 – 2011, is decorated with symbols depicting the technology by which the band’s music has been heard. There’s a cassette, a 7-inch single, an LP, a compact disc, and finally the pie-slice of concentric radii we’ve come to associate with wireless Internet service. As I type this, the Knox County Public Library’s CD copy of R.E.M.’s Murmur is checked out. The library seems not to own a hard copy of Reckoning. But with my Knox County Public Library card number and PIN, I can visit knoxlib.org and listen to both records all I like—with no exposure to winter weather or the daily-changing challenge that is moving a vehicle around downtown Knoxville.
Alexander Street is not Spotify or Pandora or Apple Music. It’s a research database. The company’s offerings are enormous; KCPL simply subscribes to its streaming audio on your behalf, which is extremely cost-effective compared to competitors. Alexander Street’s only real disadvantages compared to those other digital music sources are related to familiarity. No offense intended toward anybody—its player and search tools are simply designed for an educated audience of a certain age and sophistication, as opposed to adolescents.
KCPL owns and loans nearly 14,000 music CDs in a collection that’s constantly growing. If you buy music for your own household, you have a sense of how expensive it can be to keep a collection current. Our most popular CDs tend to contain the most ephemeral of music, to be of short-lived interest, and generally take a beating or go missing and require replacement.
Streaming music will never replace KCPL’s physical collection. But Alexander Street makes an excellent companion to that collection. I can recommend it as such simply as a guy who works behind a desk at the library, or I can share these exciting episodes from my own experience. A couple of Saturdays ago I re-watched Amadeus on the library’s Blu-ray. Dozens of Mozart operas and chamber-music pieces are excerpted in the film. The following Sunday, I was able to stream those that I don’t own, including Abduction From the Seraglio. I’ve been reading the library’s e-book edition of Dave Mustaine’s memoirs (on the Kindle I resurrected from an e-waste recycling bin on campus) and searched Alexander Street for Megadeth. There’s only a single of “Super Collider”—but it’s a track that we don’t own on a physical disc.
Because Alexander Street is a research database, if I wished to refer to “Super Collider” in a scholastic paper, it would generate a citation for me to copy and paste (in AP, MLA, or Chicago style). More relevant to my own selfish concerns—and possibly your own—the database will let me add the track to a playlist which I can save or bookmark or share via link or social media. It will let me send the track to my phone. It will give me html code to embed a player on my blog or website.
Alexander Street’s database is terrifically rich in classical music and jazz. An acquaintance observed that it’s particularly well stocked with composers and artists related to Big Ears 2016. The American Song collection has earned due accolades for its breadth and depth. A colleague was disappointed that Alexander Street offers no Culture Club, but felt compensated by Frances Faye’s presence, which kind of demonstrates what it’s for and what it’s good at: Our physical collection has about all the Culture Club you’d need, but contains no Frances Faye.
Spend some time with it, and let us know what you think.
Chris Barrett's Shelf Life alerts readers to new arrivals at the Lawson McGhee Library's stellar Sights and Sounds collection, along with recommendations and reminders of staples worthy of revisiting. He is a former Metro Pulse staff writer who’s now a senior assistant at the Knox County Public Library.
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