Resource Spotlight

     Listen to the music! If you are a student, music professor, or simply an aficionado of classical music you will want to visit the Naxos Music Library research database, the most comprehensive collection of classical music online. Here you can listen to complete works, access information about the composer, or artist, and search for music by genre, period, instrument or year of composition. Naxos has an ever growing collection of over 90,000, tracks and 7,000 composers available for FGCU students, staff and faculty. While listening to the music, users can click “About this recording” to read about the works, artists and composers.

Naxos Music Library broadens the spectrum of assignments and learning experiences that professors can offer to their students. Using Naxos, professors may create playlists and incorporate them into their syllabi making the material available to all students in the class at once.  There are no limitations based on physical holdings in the library, loan periods, or the number of copies available. Students at all levels can engage in self-teaching and research through special student pages in Naxos devoted to  music of various historical periods.

Naxos offers More than Classical Music

      Science students may be interested in the natural sounds available through Naxos, including bird song and croaking frogs. For the casual listener, “mood” music may be selected to “soothe the savage breast”. Naxos makes available genres of music that include contemporary jazz, World/Folk, Chinese, and indigenous native music. Sound quality varies between FM quality and CD quality based on your internet connectivity.

     If your mood calls for a Beethoven symphony, Arabian belly dance music, drum rhythms from Africa, or an Aria from your favorite opera, it is available at your fingertips through the Naxos Music Library.  Here is how you can begin to reap the benefits of this very special research database available through FGCU Library.

To access Naxos Music Library:

1. Start at the library’s homepage (http://library.fgcu.edu). 
2. Click on “Articles & Databases” under the “Find” menu.
3. Enter “Naxos” in the Database Title/Name search box & click “Search”. 
4. Select “Florida Gulf Coast University Connect Now”.
5. The Naxos database will display.

There are many ways to search for music in the Naxos database.  Here are a few search strategies to get you started.

To search for a specific work, composer, title or artist:

1. Enter your terms in the keyword search box. Examples: “magic flute”; “Liszt, Franz). & click “search”.
2. Select an item from the list of albums/collections that display by clicking the check box next to the entry.
3. All of the songs in that album/collection will display in a new window.
4. Click the check boxes next to the items you want to hear (“The Magic Flute”), or click “select all”. 
5. Click “play selections (Available in the buttons on the far right.)

To browse available music for collections using Advanced Search:

1. Click “advanced search” on the toolbar near the top of the screen.
2. Nine different search fields will display on the search screen: Composer, Artist, Group, Label, Genre, Instrument, Period, Country, Year, or “Moods and Scenarios”.  Click on the magnifying glass icon to view a list of the options available under the categories.  (You may select just 1 box, or multiple boxes.)
3. Try clicking on the magnifying icon next to “moods and scenarios”.  Check the box next to “heartbreaking” and “eerie”.  Click “submit”.
4. Click “search now”.
5. A list of songs from various albums will display. Click on the link to the album you select (“Sacred and Secular Music from Renaissance Germany”).
6. A pop-up window will display all of the songs in that album.  Select song/track 13.  Click “play selections”.

Fun searches— try these in the advanced search screen!

1. For natural sounds: click on the magnifying icon next to “moods and scenarios”.  Select “scenarios” (the green button at the top).  Under nature, you can choose from dozens of choices, including “birds”, “animals”, “insects”, “rain”, “outer space”, etc.
2. For music that imitates people (like a baby crying):  click on the magnifying icon next to “moods and scenarios”.  Select “scenarios” (the green button at the top).  Under “People, Things, and Places” you can choose from dozens of choices, including “baby”, “drunk”, “graveyard”, “city”, etc.

For more information or assistance, contact the FGCU Library Reference Desk (E-mail:  libref@fgcu.edu or call x-7630.)
You may also contact the History & Humanities librarian: Rachel Cooke, rcooke@fgcu.edu
Also, check the Library website for future workshops covering the “How to’s” of using the Naxos Music Library.