Borrowing materials: Colby students, faculty and staff must present a Colby College ID. Community borrowers and alumni must present either a valid Courtesy Card or a library card from one of the participating MaineCat Libraries. Consult the Colby Libraries Loan Policies to find out what you may borrow and for how long.

Catalog Search Help: Colby Libraries Catalog

• Use the pull down menus in the catalog search box to either search for books in all Colby’s library collections simultaneously, or limit your search to a specific collection, like the Art and Music Library.
• Use the pull down menus or search tabs to limit your search to a specific material type (e.g sound recordings, scores, videos).
• If you are looking of a particular title of a book, video, or music piece, try a title search. Remember to leave off words like “the” and “an” at the beginning of the title. 
• When you know who wrote the book or piece of music, but are not sure of the exact title, search by author.  Remember to enter the author’s name “last name, first name”.  
• If you are looking for a specific piece of music or a song, and the composer or author is very prolific, use the keyword option to combine composer, title terms, and opus numbers into a keyword search.
• When searching a topic or subject, search by subject or keyword.
• For help, go into Advanced Searching; scroll to the bottom of the page for search examples.

Reserve Reading and Listening:

• Search for required course reserve materials using the Colby Libraries Catalog.  Enter either the course number or the name of your professor to retrieve a course reserve list. Many readings are available online, so just click on the active link, and authenticate with your account name and password to access online readings. 
• Books, music scores, CDs, and videos are also on reserve. When you find the item you need in the catalog, take note of the corresponding book, folder, or CD number, and present this information at the desk.
• Books and scores and folders may be borrowed for 2 hours. Videos may be borrowed for 4 hours or used in-house on library equipment in the Bixler Multimedia area.  Music reserve CDs are used in the library only.
• Make sure you bring your ID card when you come to the library to do reserve assignments!

Renew Your Books Online: Use your Colby username and password to access the My Library Account page, to renew books, check on the status of your interlibrary loans, and see what you have checked out.  

Reference: When you want to find…

• Reliable web sites in art, music or theater/dance
• Music scores (either vocal or instrumental) by a particular composer for a recital or study
• Song lyrics and song translations
• Music on CD or streaming audio
• A particular art image
• Artist information
• Journal articles on your topic
• Databases for research in your subject area
• The proper way to create and format a bibliography
• Or anything else!!

…come see, email or call the Art and Music Librarian, Margaret Ericson. She is there to provide expert, friendly assistance at any stage of your research process – when you need help developing a search strategy, evaluating the quality of information you’ve found, or assistance with best way to prepare a bibliography or cite information sources.

Faculty Services: The Art and Music Library provides direct library support to faculty in the form of:

• Course Reserves: Submit your Art and Music reserve lists directly to Penny Ruksznis.  Use electronic reserve forms for items that need to be scanned, digitized, or linked to an electronic text. Materials needed for the first week of classes should be submitted at least 2 weeks prior to the beginning of classes. Requests received later will be processed in order of receipt. When adding items to your list, please allow 3-5 days (Monday- Friday) for requests to be processed. Consult Colby Libraries course reserve policies for more information.
• Instruction / Information Literacy: Contact the Art and Music Librarian if you are planning to incorporate a library research component into your course in art, music or theater/dance, and would like to schedule a library instruction workshop for your particular course. Margaret Ericson offers both class presentations and one-on-one instruction for those wishing to receive in-depth help. All class handouts and powerpoints delivered by the instruction librarians are posted on the Help With Assignments pages.
• Ordering materials: You may suggest a purchase for the Art and Music Library. Keep in mind that our consortial membership in MaineCat and NEXPRESS expands our collection access.