Our streaming Music Online collections, powered by Alexander Street Press, have recently added tons of great new content. You'll find these collections listed on both our Digital Media and Database pages. If you're new to the service, we have six streaming music collections you can access with your library card number and PIN:

• American Song - Hear and feel the music of America's past. Includes songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers, and cowboys, as well as the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests, and more.
• Classical Music Library - The world's largest multi-label database of classical music. Includes recordings from Hyperion, Bridge Records, Sanctuary Classics, Artemis-Vanguard, Hänssler Classic, Vox, and many more. Find music written from the earliest times (e.g. Gregorian Chant) to the present, including many contemporary composers. Repertoire ranges from vocal and choral music, to chamber, orchestral, solo instrumental, and opera.
• Contemporary World Music - Explore sounds from every continent: reggae, worldbeat, neo-traditional, world fusion, Balkanic jazz, African film, Bollywood, Arab swing and jazz, as well as traditional music - Indian classical, fado, flamenco, klezmer, zydeco, gospel, gagaku, and more.
• Jazz Music Library - The largest and most comprehensive collection of streaming jazz available online — with thousands of jazz artists, ensembles, albums, and genres.
• Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries - Produced in partnership with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, this is a virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions.
• Music Online - Search and browse across all of our Alexander Street Press collections from one simple interface.

There is far too much great music here to pick favorites; you really need to check it out for yourself. But here are a few personal highlights to get you started:

Ethiopiques Volume 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale 1969-1974 - This wonderful collection of instrumental Ethio Jazz was recorded in the Ethiopian cultural boom during the final years of the reign of the Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie. Partly familiar to western ears accustomed to jazz, yet alluringly exotic and distinctly African, many will recognize these songs from the 2005 Bill Murray, Jim Jarmusch film, Broken Flowers. Find it in the Contemporary World Music collection or make it a pair with The Rough Guide to World Music by Simon Broughton. 

Now Here's Johnny Cash - Johnny Cash left Sun Records in 1958 to sign with Columbia, and three years later he was a bigger star than ever and well on his way to becoming a music legend. Sun, naturally, wanted to take advantage of Cash's growing popularity, and 1961's Now Here's Johnny Cash was his final Sun release. Browse the American Song collection to find many more great releases from Sun records by luminaries like Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Howlin' Wolf. Read more about Johnny Cash and Sun Records in these books by Michael Streissguth and Colin Escott.

The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death - Ask a guitarist about John Fahey and prepare to watch them slowly succumb to alternating paroxysms of frustration and joy. Frustration because John Fahey's just so impossibly good and joy because...well, because he's just so impossibly good. Of course, there is healthy debate over which record of Fahey's classic Takoma Records period is his best (1968's Voice of the Turtle gets my vote) but fear not, they're all here. Find John Fahey in the American Song collection. Want to feel that joy and frustration yourself?  Check out Fingerstyle Guitar by Brian Gore.

Black Saint and the Sinner Lady - Alexander Street's Jazz Music Library could be the single strongest streaming collection we offer. It's so good, in fact, that I found it nearly impossible to pick a highlight. But by any standard Charles Mingus's 1963 Black Saint and the Sinner Lady is just that. You'll find more by Mingus, as well as the full host of jazz luminaries, not to mention another 10,756 albums and 133,668 tracks of jazz righteousness in our Jazz Music Library. For more on Mingus, take a look at Myself When I am Real: the life and music of Charles Mingus by Gene Santoro. 

In C - Like picking a favorite from the Jazz Music Library, choosing a highlight from Alexander Street Press's Classical Music Library is a daunting task. Terry Riley's In C has been in my rotation lately, but if 20th century classical is not for you, you'll find music here from Beethoven to Britten as well as everything between and beyond. Not sure where to start? Another great feature of the Alexander Street products is their playlists. Playlists are assembled by ASP's editors and serve as a great way to introduce yourself to new music. Or, you can login to make your own playlists and share them with the rest of us. Make a reading connection with Terry Riley’s In C by Robert Carl.

Of course, these choices do not even begin to scratch the surface of all the great music the Free Library offers through Alexander Street Press. Please visit our Digital Media or Database page get started. Then, share your favorite discoveries with us in the comments below.

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Tags: databases, music

Today marks what would have been acclaimed children’s book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak’s 85^th birthday. Check out today’s whimsical Google Doodle that celebrates Sendak’s life and legacy as one of the most important children’s book artists of the 20^th century. His revolutionary approach to children’s literature—in which he “wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying, and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche” (New York Times)—earned him a plethora of awards, including the Caldecott Medal (for Where the Wild Things Are), the National Book Award (for Outside Over There), and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for children’s literature. The Free Library has plenty of copies of Sendak’s books, and we encourage you take the time to share one with your little one or re-read an old favorite of your own!

For even more Maurice Sendak goodness, check out his collected works at The Rosenbach Museum & Library. (The Rosenbach and the Free Library Foundation jointly announced their intent to merge this past April.) The Rosenbach holds more than 10,000 works of art, manuscripts, books, and ephemera of Sendak’s, including original color artwork from books—such as Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, The Nutshell Library, Outside Over There, and Brundibar—never-before-seen working materials; and rare, unpublished sketches. Learn more about the Rosenbach’s Maurice Sendak Collection, and be sure to check out their upcoming exhibition, The Night Max Wore His Suit: 50 Years of Wild Things!

Tags: Children's books

Tags: Teens

Many of our ebook readers have already discovered Freading. It's a great alternative to our Overdrive collection with a wide selection of titles from a growing list of publishers. Freading definitely has something for everyone, but romance fans have discovered that their especially strong collection of steamy titles is not to be missed. But the best thing about Freading is that there are never any waiting lists.  Freading has a unique business model that allows multiple people to read a given title at once.  That's great news for readers! 

If you've tried Freading already, you know that it works on a unique token system.  Each library card holder is allotted a certain number of tokens per week to "spend" on ebooks of their choice (more on that below). Each ebook "costs" between one and four tokens. The number of tokens charged for each title is determined by the publishers. You can "spend" your tokens each week or let them accrue over a four week period to get higher value titles. If you haven't used all of your tokens within four weeks, they disappear and you start over with your original allotment on week five.

Now the really good news: we've just doubled the number of tokens you get each week from two to four! This will give you even more choices and let you read more of those four-token ebooks. Grab your Free Library card and PIN and visit our Digital Media page to get started!

Tags: Romance, databases, ebooks

June is Great Outdoors Month, the perfect time to get outside with your little one, enjoying the beautiful late spring/early summer weather. It can be as simple as a walk around the neighborhood. Why not take a walk to your local library?  Be sure to engage in conversation with your child about what you see, smell, hear, and feel as you walk.   

While you’re at the library, be sure to try these great nature-themed books, or ask your librarian for recommendations!

Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature by Nicola Davies

What’s in the Garden? By Marianne Collins Berkes

Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman

In the Tall, Tall Grass By Denise Fleming

In the Garden: Who’s Been Here? by Lindsay Barrett George

Rabbits and Raindrops  By Jim Arnosky

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Tags: Pre-K, early literacy