About PLAY

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What's This All About?

At this point, PLAY is about good intentions.

PLAY is the resource I've been hunting for in order to help make my job as a library music collection builder easier and to satisfy my own curiosity as a listener. PLAY is a vehicle for identifying the year's best CDs and for determining which recordings—above all others—would comprise a core collection for every genre. PLAY is my excuse for exploring music that I otherwise might have missed and my way of working through what it is that really makes a record outstanding. PLAY is how I motivate myself to keep abreast what's happening in music in general and in music technology in particular. PLAY is my set of bookmarks and my conscience.

While I wouldn't exactly call Sid Vicious the patron saint of PLAY the magazine does subscribe to punk's dual ethic—I'm doing it myself and I'm doing it my way. It comes out quarterly, but the current issue will be a work in progress as information is added over the course of three months. Why hold back?

Here's what PLAY includes:

Features >>

Brief pieces on music-related subjects—artists, genres, issues, technology. Think modest in this department.

Reviews >>

One of the objectives here is to include reviews of a range of music-related materials and resources—CDs, music DVDs, relevant websites, magazines, books, and reference sources. I'll try to overcome the limits of my own expertise and prejudices by including a second opinion when possible.

The PLAY Lists: Quantifying Critical Consensus >>

The PLAY Lists—a series of discographies representing the best CDs of the year and the decade, core collections in various musical genres, bibliographies of collection building resources, and a running list of the year's best CD releases—are at the heart of this publication. The PLAY Lists are essentially a research project which involves the collection of published sources of outstanding and recommended recordings, the development of a weighted rating scale that reflects the relative credibility of these sources, and the creation of a number of database files. The aim of this effort is to determine which CDs—by critical consensus—should be identified as the most outstanding recordings within a given genre.

For more details... [ -GO- ]

PLAY Smarter: Recommended Reading >>

An annotated listing of articles on music and music technology to keep those horizons expanding.

If You Want to PLAY... - Comparative Online CD Prices >>

I'll regularly check the prices of a handful of recent and older CDs from a variety of genres at the major online outlets—Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders, CDNow, and CD Universe.

Benefit CDs

Social action in CD form. Hopefully beginning by the Summer 2000 issue.

Links >>

A selective collection of links to music-related Internet resources.

Archives >>

Back issues of PLAY >> will be archived and indexed for easy retrieval.

And Just Who Do I Think I Am?

I've been a Reference Librarian at Union College since 1978 and Bibliographic Instruction Librarian almost that long. I'm also been responsible for the development of the compact disc collection, which has evolved from a pleasure listening collection into an integral part of the Union curriculum. I've published articles, reviews, discographies, and bibliographies on music-related subjects in Library Journal, Information Technology and Libraries, Rockingchair, VOYA, Database, The Laserdisk Professional, CD-ROM Professional,and EMIE Bulletin. In terms of professional recognition, I've received (individually or as a contributing member of the Schaffer Library faculty) the Information Authorship Award (Online Inc./Information Access), the Facts on File Current Awareness Award, Library Hi Tech Best Library-Related Website, NYLA Ethnic and Multicultural Resources Award, and GALE/EMIERT Multicultural Award.

Support >>

Work on aspects of this project has been supported by grants from the Union College Humanities Faculty Development Fund and by the Schaffer Library Whitehorn Fund.

Recognition >>

PLAY >> was selected as a finalist in the ONLINE World 2000 Conference “Best Practices” competition held in San Diego in September. The other finalists in this category were librarians from Pepperdine University and the Maryland Public Information Network and corporate information and research center professionals from AT&T and the ultimate winner, Lockheed Martin Energy Systems.

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