Library Assignment

First, let me state that Bobst is a huge and beautiful library. While I may have gotten lost a couple times, I did manage to find the information I needed based on my topic of Popular Music in Film.

1. While browsing the reference room in vain looking for reference guide flyers I came upon several other informative worksheets. These were sheets that basically helped orient students to the library in general, something that every student needs in order to do any kind of research. I read about the Microforms Collection, what a microform was, were they were located. I also read about the Avery Fisher Center, an area of the library that is especially beneficial to media studies students, as this is where all of the video and audio recordings are held.

The librarian showed me how to access the reference guide flyers online, as there are no longer hardcopies. The reference guide that would be most appropriate for my research would be the Media and Communication option. I’d then look under Media and Society and/or Communications to look for resources related to my topic.

2. For this assignment I looked at several journals, but a few caught my attention: I found most success with an article in a volume of Critical Studies in Media Communication. The piece, titled “The Great Secret: Silence, Cinema, and Modernism” by Des O’Rawe, was published in the Winter 2006 Vol. 47 Issue 4 edition with the ISSN: 0036-9543. It discussed the aspects of sound in film and use of silence. It then went on to discuss the increase in the use of pop music in film. The next article I looked at was from the Quarterly Review of Film and Video, which is published in the UK and a peer-reviewed journal. The article was titled, “The Sound of Silence: Film Music and Lament” by Reni Celeste; with an ISSN: 1050-9802. It talked about the introduction of popular music into cinema through a focus on Mike Nichol’s film, The Graduate.

3. I found the Bobst Online Catalog easiest to use and was able to look up and locate a couple books that directly pertained to my topic. Both books were located on the second floor in the Music Research section of the library, and they actually happened to be right near each other on the shelves. The first book, “Changing Tunes: The Use of Pre-existing Music in Film” by Phil Powrie and Robynn Jeananne Stilwellk, had the call number ML2075.C46 2006. The next book is “Hollywood Shack Job: Rock Music in Film and On Your Screen” by Harvey Kubernik, and had a call number of ML2075.K83 2006. Books located near or next to these were, “Hitchcock’s Music” by Jack Sullivan, “A History of Movie Musicals: Gotta Sing Gotta Dance” by John Kobal, and “One More Kiss: The Broadway Musical in the 1970’s” by Ethan Mordden.

4. Lastly, I went to the Avery Fisher Center and checked out Music in the Twelfth Century, a documentary about the development of music through the Church. It was released in 1986 and had a call number of VCA 4920. While thinking about popular music in film, I was drawn to the history of this tape. I thought it would be important to research the beginnings of music in media (which is essentially what the Church was).