Christmas Fest Program Notes

Are you disappointed that your Catalyst searches are not turning up multiple scholarly articles about a 5-minute band arrangement of Joy to the World? Don't worry -- there are other places to look for information for program notes besides academic research!

Two great potential sources of information are liner notes and reviews.

Liner notes are like program notes for professional recordings. They used to be tucked inside album cases for LPs, tapes, and CDs.  They lined the inside of the case, hence the name. Liner notes can be a great way to get musicians' descriptions of the pieces they record.

Reviews are short articles evaluating books, recordings, live performances, or music scores. They sometimes contain helpful information about composers or their works.

It is not difficult to find liner notes in Catalyst. You start by finding a recording!

1. Run an Advanced Search in Catalyst for your piece.  A combination of composer and title is best. 

2. Click the "audio/visual" radial button at the top of the search interface to limit to recordings.  Use the button at the top of the screen, not the "sound recordings" option in the Material Type menu on the right.  The radial button will bring up both physical and online recordings; the side menu will only bring up online recordings, and you'll miss out on what's in our CD and LP collections!

3. This should bring up Catalyst records for all the physical and online recordings we have of the piece. If you find a physical item, you can usually check the Catalyst record to see if there are liner notes. Click into the item's record and scroll down to a section called "Notes."  (This doesn't specifically mean there are liner notes. It means there are interesting information about the item that the cataloger couldn't put anywhere else, so they put them in record note). Often there will be a note, as in the screenshot below, indicating that program notes or biographical information are inserted in the item's container.

4. To read the liner notes, make a note of the recording's call number. Ask the worker at the circulation desk to pull the item for you to check out.

St. Olaf College Library subscribes to a number of streaming music databases, including Naxos Music Library and Naxos Jazz.

You can find albums to stream by searching in Catalyst and linking to the item from the catalog record or by searching directly in one of the Naxos databases.

Once you have found a recording in Naxos, look to the left side under the album cover image.  If Naxos provides the liner notes, there will be a "booklet" link that will open the notes in a new pdf.  Not all Naxos albums have liner notes.

St. Olaf College Library subscribes to a number of streaming music databases, including Music Online.

While you can find albums in Music Online by searching in Catalyst, it is actually easier to search for their liner notes directly in the database.

1. Search for the composer and piece you are investigating in Music Online.

2. In the results list, look on the left for the "content type" filter. Set it to "liner notes."

3. This will bring up a list of liner notes that should include information about your composer and piece.

You can look for reviews in Catalyst, but it can be a little tricky, because Catalyst does not always label reviews clearly.

1. Search for the piece or composer you are writing about.

2. Look at the filters on the left of the results list. Sometimes there will be an option for "reviews."

3. There's a good chance that "magazine articles" will also be reviews of recordings or performances.

Music Periodicals Database is good place to look for reviews because it has a specific "reviews" filter.

1. Search for the composer or piece you are writing about.

2. If you are in the Advanced Search function, you can scroll down the page to the "Document Type" filter and select "Review."  If you are already in your results list, the document type filter is on the left side of the screen.