UW Libraries Media Center Blog

Innocence (DVD IEF 226) By Lucile Hadzihalilovic

2009-07-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

This film by director Lucile Hadzihalilovic is a stunning example of contemporary symbolist fiction. Based on the novella by Frank Wedekind (author of Spring Awakening), the story follows the daily routine of an unusual all-girls school located in an isolated forest. I was pulled in by the extreme vividness of the cinematography; the green of the forest and the colored ribbons in the girls’ hair is completely saturated amongst crisp pastels and high contrasts. A very sparse soundtrack of classical music is supplimented by heightened ambient noise, adding an eeriness to the other-worldly environment. I recommend it if you liked Picnic at Hanging Rock (DVD CRIT 053), La mala educación (DVD SONYHE 057), and Palindromes (DVD WELL 027).

HALF JAPANESE: THE BAND THAT WOULD BE KING (DVD VANF 001)

2009-07-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

Half Japanese is a band you want to love. Like the Shaggs, Daniel Johnston and Gary Wilson, Half Japanese earned their cred from their eccentric personalities and unconventional yet honest musical style. The great thing about watching a well made music documentary about this band, is that you don’t actually have to listen to the fifteen or so albums they produced before they knew how to play their instruments (arguably). The live and studio footage is enough to give you a feel of the band’s aesthetic and progression, and, thanks to a great editor, are all surprisingly enjoyable. Band members David and Jad Fair are fantastic eccentrics, who explain their inspirations and diligence with a seriousness that is both endearing and honorable. Footage of the band is interspursed with interviews with legend Mo Tucker of the Velvet Underground, and music critic Byron Coley, among others. This film is an homage to music nerds everywhere.

Other music documentaries I suggest for kids who never got any good at sports: American Hardcore (DVD SONYHE 036), The Devil and Daniel Johnston (DVD SONYHE 038), and Joy Division (DVD GENI 047).

Are you "Building Social Skills in the Preschool Child"?

2009-07-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

Need expert help? Then watch this seminal UW film:
http://bit.ly/TyzEc (part 1) &
http://bit.ly/1bmuaL (part 2)

Bastille Day VHS Party

2009-07-14T20:18:00.001-07:00

Can't get enough of the Bicentennial Celebration of Bastille Day? Watch all 4 volumes on VHS, now, while it's here: http://bit.ly/WmZvQ

New Media - July 2009

2009-07-01T21:52:00.000-07:00

We've some great new media for July. Check it out ...

UW Welcomes Afghan Visitors

2009-06-22T22:34:00.000-07:00

Three esteemed visitors from Radio Kabul/Afghanistan arrived in Seattle this past Monday for a 3-week audio archiving workshop sponsored by the UW Libraries and the UW School of Music.

They are:
• Zafar Jan Daqiq, American Institute of Afghanistan Studies;
• Abdul Jamil Wardak, Radio Afghanistan;
• Abdul Wahed Popal, Radio Afghanistan.

The workshop, which is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), has been developed to complement a larger NEH Preservation and Access grant that has enabled Radio Kabul/Afghanistan staff to digitize and preserve nearly 1500 hours of unique music recordings. In addition to providing the participants with hands-on training in audio preservation, the workshop is intended to connect the Radio Kabul/Afghanistan Archives to a larger community of international archives and archivists.

The workshop is co-instructed by Laurel Sercombe (UW Ethnomusicology Archives), and myself, along with help from John Gibbs (UW Libraries), Gary Louie (UW School of Music), Colin Todd (UW School of Music, and others. The Principal Investigator for the workshop and the larger NEH grant is Hiromi Lorraine Sakata, former UW ethnomusicology professor and UCLA Professor Emerita.

Following their 3 weeks in Seattle, Prof. Sakata will accompany the participants to Bloomington for a visit to Indiana University’s Archives of Traditional Music, where Mr. Wahid Nazari (President of Radio-Television Afghanistan) is scheduled to join the group. The group then flies to Washington DC where they will meet with representatives from the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian until their return to Kabul in late July.

More information about Radio Kabul/Afghanistan can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Kabul

A BBC story about the archive and how its staff members (Abdul Jamil Wardak and Abdul Wahed Popal among them) helped save it, can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/kr4fhf

And if you see our honored guests around UW please make them feel welcome by saying “Salaam Alekum” (Dari for “Hello” / “Peace and blessings be upon you”).

-John Vallier

New Media - June 2009

2009-06-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

We’re finishing up the academic year with some great additions to our collection. As for DVDs, we’ve just got in a nice little DIY documentary on Red House, a punk venue in Olympia, Washington. There are also some new Criterion films: Science is fiction, The curious case of Benjamin Button, L’età di Cosimo de’ Medici, Ariel, Blaise Pascal, Cartesius, The love parade, Monte Carlo, One hour with you, and Varjoja paratiisissa. We also got a bunch of new television shows (Battlestar Galactica, SesameStreet, HBO’s Carnivale) as well as new seasons to some shows we already carried.

As for VHS, we've added 260 this month. That's a lot for a dying format -- heh. This is largely due to cataloging videos from the recently acquired EMC collection. A lot of classic education titles in there. And, of course, we are still plodding through a large donation of VHS tapes -- we're up to D's so this month we have a lot of new day and death titles this month

As for CDs, a lot of great new additions to the Puget Sounds collection, including a bunch of titles from Hardly Art Records.

Check them all out here: DVDs, VHS, CDs

New Media - May 2009

2009-05-05T19:55:00.000-07:00

Lots of great local music and hip hop added to out collection this month, including Black Moon, Jeru the Damaja, Sleater-Kinney, Prkr, Starfucker, Portugal. The Man, Pharcyde, and a whole lot of Bill Frisell! Check out all of our new music this month here.

New additions to our DVD collection include 30 Rock (Season 1), Twilight, The Reader, Changeling, Farewell My Concubine, Spaced (Season 1 and 2), and the Prisoner of Shark Island! Check out all of our new DVDs here.

And, of course, we're continually adding VHS to our collection from a large gifts donation, including Darkman 1, 2, and 3, the entire Die Hard series, Cloak and Dagger, the Dakota Incident, the Dark Crystal, and Dante's Peak! Check out all of our newest VHS acquisitions here.

New loan period for videos: 7 days!

2009-05-01T17:03:00.001-07:00

The loan period for DVDs and VHS increased today from 3 days to 7 days. And still with unlimited renewals!

The loan period for CDs is still 3 days. And videos on course reserve will have shorter loan periods.

Jazz Music Library - Free until May 1

2009-04-29T15:58:00.000-07:00

Are you a cool cat who digs swing, free jazz, bop, or? Check out ASP's Jazz Music Library for free through May 1. Let us know if you like this database o' sound recordings and we'll consider subscribing.

URL: http://jazz.alexanderstreet.com

username: jazz

password: sneakpeek

UW Ethnomusicology Concert - Tonight (4/28)

2009-04-28T12:41:00.000-07:00

The UW School of Music, Division of Ethnomusicology's annual recital by visiting artists spotlights music of Mongolia and South Africa. Visiting artist Li Bo, a master of the Mongolian morin khuur (a two-stringed horse-head fiddle), presents a virtuoso solo program. Mudzunga Junniah Davhula, visiting artist from the Venda region of South Africa, leads an ensemble of singing, drumming, and reed pipes.

DATE AND TIME
Tuesday, April 28, 7:30 p.m.
Meany Theater

TICKETS
$15 ($10 students and seniors)

PROGRAM DETAIL/BACKGROUND
The School of Music's Division of Ethnomusicology has been hosting visiting artists from around the world since the mid-1960s. Each year, the division invites two master musicians to join the faculty as artists in residence. Artists have come from numerous countries in Africa, North and South America, Asia and Europe. Li Bo and Mudzunga Junniah Davhula are the division's artists in residence for the 2008-09 academic year.

BIOS

Li Bo, born in Inner Mongolia in 1955, is a distinguished performer on the morin khuur, the horse-head fiddle known in Chinese as matouqin. He has been a professional musician since the age of 15, when he joined a local performing arts troupe and began to travel across the steppes. Later he was a featured soloist with a national troupe, and eventually became the lead morin khuur player with the Inner Mongolian Radio/Television network. In the mid-1980s, he taught in the School of Music at the Inner Mongolia Normal University and, at the same time, studied composition.

Li Bo has lived in Japan since 1995, but he has not lost touch with his roots. In 1996, he founded the Morin Khuur Fund Association and raised $20,000 for the 1st Annual Inner Mongolia Folk Music Competition. In 2001, he donated 140 sheep to people of his native region.

He brings the same spirit to his international performances. When Li Bo came to the United States to perform at the Northwest Folklife Festival in 2004 and 2005, he volunteered to work with students in local primary and secondary schools.

Mudzunga Junniah Davhula is a highly revered performer, teacher, and community leader from the Venda area of the Limpopo Province, South Africa. As a visiting artist at the University of Washington, she has introduced her students to Venda music traditions, focusing on the traditional reed pipe ensemble. This ensemble includes reed pipes, Venda drums, singing, and dancing. Her students have learned to play a variety of instruments and to sing traditional songs in several languages.

Mrs. Davhula's appointment as a visiting artist at the University of Washington School of Music marks the first time that a visiting artist from the Venda culture has been appointed to such a position at a North American university.

Program detail
Li Bo will perform solo works for morin khuur and will also be joined by pianist Sachi Hirakouji, dancer Xiaoyan Ban, and students Erin Maloney, April Nishimura, and Leah Pogwizd for several selections.

Mudzunga Junniah Davhula will perform with a student ensemble.

Warner Archive Collection

2009-04-27T22:14:00.000-07:00

Have you been looking for a film that hasn't been released on DVD? Check out the following from Slate's Mark Harris and then let us know which titles will support your research and teaching needs: "The recent launch of the Warner Archive Collection could well portend a revolution; it's DVD on demand, a way for Warner (and, one hopes, for every other studio) to make movies available without spending the $75,000 to $100,000 it costs to release an old title into an ominously contracting marketplace. Here's how it works: Go to the archive and browse the titles. Click on the ones you want, and for $19.95 apiece, they'll burn a DVD-R and ship you the movie in a standard plastic case with cover art. There are no extras except the trailer, if it's available; there isn't even scene-by-scene chaptering. But you will get the film, shown in the correct aspect ratio and with a picture and soundtrack of mostly high quality. Virtually none of the movies in this collection has been available on DVD before. Many never even made it to VHS." http://www.slate.com/id/2216522/

New items for April 2009!

2009-04-07T19:53:00.000-07:00

Hi -- we're experimenting this month with making our "new" lists available through WorldCat local. Check them out and let us know what you think of the new format!
New DVDs, VHS, and CDs for April 2009

Crocodile Re-Opens | Crocodile Collection in the Works

2009-03-27T09:33:00.000-07:00

From KOMO: At a time when local night spots are falling victim to the struggling economy, one club is making a comeback. The Crocodile Café was a dingy nightclub that became a second home for local musicians during grunge rock's heyday. Many of Seattle's most famous bands, including Nirvana and Pearl Jam, played there during its 16-year life. Money troubles shut down the Croc in December 2007, but the live music venue reopened on Thursday night, thanks to nothing short of a miracle.

While the Crocodile Cafe re-opens, UW Ethnomusicology Archvies and UW Libraries continue to process the Crocodile Cafe Collection—a series of some 3,000 hours of live recordings made by soundman Jim Anderson. Watch this blog for news about a listening and release party.

Washington Film Works - Viral Video Campaign

2009-03-27T08:42:00.000-07:00

Attention Washington based filmmakers! Help WFW establish Washington State as the premier west-cost filming location. They're seeking five local filmmakers to create dynamic and entertaining viral videos. These viral videos will promote the state's diverse locations and topography as well as the seasoned local talent and crew. $1000 grants will be given to the five selected filmmakers to put towards production. Visit this site for more info.

The best 100 rap albums are here

2009-03-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

The Media Center is proud to present a new collection of the best one hundred hip-hop albums of all time. Spanning from the early greats (Erik B. & Rakim, Grandmaster Flash, the Ultramagnetic MC's) through the 1990's (2Pac, Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang Clan) to some of most prominent voices in rap today (Kanye West, Lil' Wayne, Jay-Z), we have gathered a collection together that will both educate on the history of hip-hop and entertain the ears. View the list of the 100 greatest albums - as well as see snippets of reviews from various publications - at out website here.

Digital television is coming. Are you ready?

2009-03-18T16:36:00.000-07:00

The folks over at Reclaim the Media have put together some useful information on the switch to digital television. Check it out here.

Free Smithsonian Folkways Podcasts

2009-03-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

Songs of protest. Spoken word. Traditional musics. Sound FX. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings has it all. As a UW community member you can access these recordings online @ Smithsonian Global Sound. Now you can also download (free to everyone) 24 one-hour programs that explores the history of this collection: click here.

More about the podcasts: The music of modern day giants like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Ani Difranco is interwoven with original Folkways recordings to demonstrate the lasting legacy that Folkways Records has on popular music. Recent and archival interviews with Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Mickey Hart, Studs Terkel, and others help reveal the remarkable human stories behind this equally remarkable collection. The series was produced by CKUA Radio in Alberta, Canada and originally aired in 1999.

New Media - March 2009

2009-03-03T18:25:00.000-08:00

Lots of great local music and hip hop added to out collection this month, including Burning Hearts, Tribe Called Quest, Cut Copy, Hercules and Love Affair, DJ/rupture, Raekwon, Sonando, Thanaton, and Ultramagnetic MC's. Check out all of our new music this month here.

New additions to our DVD collection include The Best of the Colbert Report, Burn After Reading, Dali in New York, Paris Je'Taime, Man on Wire, Step Brothers, and The Wackness. Check out all of our new DVDs here.

And, of course, we're continually adding VHS to our collection from a large gifts donation, including City Slickers I and II, The Cisco Kid, Class Action, Conan the Barbarian, Congo, Stakeout, and Coming to America. Check out all of our newest VHS acquisitions here.

Pitchfork Media's Best Albums of 2008

2009-02-19T17:51:00.000-08:00

Just in at the Media Center are the best ten indie albums of 2008, as decided by Pitchfork Media. Pitchfork is the barometer of what's cool, as well as a prime example of how erudite music journalists can be. In either case, its a great selection of music that the Media Center is proud to offer as part of their collection:

1. Fleet Foxes - Sun Giant EP/Fleet Foxes
2. Portishead - Third
3. New Age - Nouns
4. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
5. Deerhunter - Microcastle
6. TV On The Radio - Dear Science
7. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
8. M83 - Saturdays = Youth
9. Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair
10. DJ/rupture - Uproot

The Pitchfork Media top ten lists can be accessed here.

New Feb lists

2009-02-19T16:09:00.000-08:00

Check it out ... the "new" lists for February are up:
DVD
VHS
CD

Milo Ryan Phonoarchive @ NARA

2009-02-19T08:37:00.000-08:00

Requests for material from the Milo Ryan Phonoarchive (KIRO-CBS collection of broadcasts from the World War II years and after) should be directed to mopix@nara.gov. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) owns the original recordings and makes access copies so long as permission is granted by KIRO-CBS. To search the Milo Ryan Phonoarchive access NARA's Archival Research Catalog: http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/

Inauguration Watch in OUGL 220

2009-01-16T18:41:00.000-08:00

When:	1/20/09 8:00 AM - 1/20/09 12:00 PM
Where:	Odegaard Undergraduate Library, Room 220; Health Sciences Libraries, 3rd floor learning/teaching lab
Description:	Join the campus community to watch Barack Obama become the 44th President of the United States. Odegaard Undergraduate Library, Room 220. And Health Sciences Libraries, 3rd floor learning/teaching lab.
Sponsor:	University Libraries Phone: 206-543-0242
Categories:	Libraries Special Events Television

MC Search Box Defaults to "All UW Libraries"

2009-01-14T11:10:00.000-08:00

We have modified the Media Center search box @ http://www.lib.washington.edu/media/ so that by default it searches for movies and videos across all 3 UW campuses. Previously the default was to search for movies and videos only in the Media Center in Odegaard Library. This option is now listed in the second position on the drop-down menu.

As always, let us know if you have any suggestions or would like any individualized assistance in accessing the Media Centers resrouces and services.

New Media - January '09

2009-01-02T14:20:00.000-08:00

Lots of great local music added to our Puget Sounds collection this month including: 3 records by Calvin Johnson, Bronze Fawn's Lumber, Dyme Def's Space Music, 2 albums from the Fastbacks, Grand Hallway's Yes Is the Answer, Lunch Buddy Program's Rest stops and Roadmaps, Optimus Rhyme's He Dies in Rocket School, 3 albums from Johanna Kunin, and many more. Check out all of our new music this month here.

New additions to our DVD collection include Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Corpse Bride, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Hercules: The Legendary Journey (Season 1), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Planet B-Boy, Qui Etes Vous Polly Magoo?, Lost (Season 4), and WALL-E. Check out all of our new DVDs here.

And, of course, we're continually adding some VHS to our collection from a large gifts donation, including Child's Play 1-3, Chasing Amy, Champagne for Caesar, 5 new Charlie Chan titles, Change of Habit, 3 versions of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (almost in time for the holidays!), and Chopper Chicks in Zombietown. Check out all of our newest VHS acquisitions here.