One month and a half later . . .



Sorry for the posting gap, folks. Jaina is too busy with her new job to post. And (1) I don't have a fraction of her music insight, (2) I had a month of frantic prep for our Accreditation visit, AND (3) my magazines have finally started arriving -- without regurgitation I am nothing as a blogger. It was sort of an existential month.

So, I'm on the lookout for two new blogging partners. If you have any interest, email me a paragraph or two about your background to erikab@comcast.net. Meanwhile, I have two other candidates in mind who I will be recruiting with shameless abandon over the next few weeks.

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Fun librarian nerdlinger activity of the day --

Search for the first use of the phrase "hip hop" and/or "rap music" in your databases.

Students have been researching genre papers here this week, and there are some real class standouts who are intense hip hop historians.

So I gained some cool points with the following link (without once describing it as a "cool link", which gave me extra cred, I'm sure . . .) :

We talked about the strategy in this search string -- "hip hop" OR (rap AND music). Then, we had to put a date limiter on the results to get . . .

Freedberg, Mike. "Rapping It Up." Boston Globe. Boston, Mass.: Apr 10, 1980. pg. 1

Some of the best quotes include --
"Rap boogie may not sound like old Chicago blues or New Orleans rock 'n' roll, but it is identical in attitude to the raw basics of those genres. . . . In rap boogie, (the rappers) parade their importance."

" Taking their image and concept of verse from Muhammad Ali, their equating of sex and ambition from James Brown, their sardonic and vaudeville humor from Rufus Thomas and perhaps George Clinton, the DJs created an alternative form of disco."

The article offers a way to instantly demonstrate the relevance of our library resources for this assignment. It also grants a revealing glimpse at the birth of the genre. And, of course, libraries get a little more hip when we share this kind of thing. Stellar.