January 7, 2011 (SAN DIEGO, CA) -- Electronic publisher Alexander Street Press announced today that its streaming music service for libraries and the education market has nearly tripled in size following the addition of close to 400,000 new jazz, world, and American music recordings.

“This is the largest single content release we’ve done to-date,” said Alexander Street’s senior music editor Liz Dutton, who explained that system-wide enhancements, process improvements, and search functionality upgrades have made the site’s rapid—and ongoing—growth possible. Said Dutton, “We expect to offer access to more than 750,000 recordings by mid-2011.” Other site enhancements include ten times faster search speeds; sound quality, which has increased from 64 kbps to 320 kbps for most recordings; and simplified search results display. Since mid-2010, the site has also supported on-the-go access for most mobile devices.

The range of new recordings across Music Online reflects the publisher’s commitment to providing affordable educational access to the highest quality recordings and record labels. Said Dutton, “Music education programs—and audiophiles served by public libraries—want and need not just a vast repertoire, but access to the very best performances, performers, and the highest quality recordings.“

New recordings were released across many of the Music Online databases, including 46,000 tracks into American Song, 61,000 tracks into Jazz Music Library, and 132,000 tracks into Contemporary World Music. Prominent highlights of the latest release include seminal live performances by Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Muggsy Spanier, and the Mills Brothers as well as albums from Sarah Vaughan, Otis Grand, Ike & Tina Turner, Eddie Dean, Bill Haley, Gene Autry, Rudy Vallee, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Willie Nelson, the Highwaymen, and James Brown. Record labels include Storyville Records, JSP Records, The Montreux Jazz Label, Jazz Unlimited, Daptone Records, JSP Records, Acrobat, and GNP Crescendo. The publisher plans another major release of 57,000 new classical recordings from EMI in late January.

Also new to Music Online are close to 140,000 popular music recordings—available only to subscribers of the entire Music Online: Listening suite—featuring pop, punk, musical theatre, hip-hop, and country recordings from twentieth-century artists such as the Sex Pistols, Chicago, a Flock of Seagulls, Tanya Tucker, Liberace, and Rod Stewart. For a complete listing of all new content added to Music Online, visit http://muco.alexanderstreet.com and select “What’s New.”

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About Music Online*
A cross-searchable, online suite of music listening, score, and reference resources and the most comprehensive online resource available for the study of classical, jazz, world, and American music, Music Online includes five individual “Listening” collections: Classical Music Library; Jazz Music Library; American Song; Smithsonian Global Sound® for Libraries; and Contemporary World Music. With this update, Music Online now includes more than 690,000 recordings; more than 24,000 musical scores; 400-plus opera and dance videos; and more than 66,000 pages of music reference content.*

About Alexander Street Press
Alexander Street Press is an electronic publisher of award-winning online collections in the humanities, social sciences, performing arts, and music. Alexander Street online collections are available to libraries and educational institutions world-wide. For more information or for media access to any of the Alexander Street streaming video collections, visit http://www.alexanderstreet.com or contact Meg Keller at mkeller [at] alexanderstreet [dot] com ( mkeller [at] alexanderstreet [dot] com).

Reviewers, media contacts, libraries, and university faculty may request extended access to Alexander Street online collections by emailing marketing [at] alexanderstreet [dot] com ( marketing [at] alexanderstreet [dot] com).

*recording counts represent data available for the North American market. For worldwide data, email sales [at] alexanderstreet [dot] com (sales [at] alexanderstreet [dot] com)
 
Contact Details
Meg Keller, Director of Marketing
Alexander Street Press
3212 Duke Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
703-212-8520 x 116
mkeller [at] alexanderstreet [dot] com (mkeller [at] alexanderstreet [dot] com)
http://www.alexanderstreet.com