About the Digital Library

The AIRS Database or Digital Library is now open for searching and uploading resources.

This is the third version of the AIRS Digital Library and it has benefitted greatly from the earlier versions in terms of structure and functionality. Many thanks go to George Tzanetakis, Ichiro Fujinaga, Mike Forrester, Nyssim Lefford, Theresa Leonard, Donald Moses and the rest of his Islandora team at the Robertson Library, Bing-Yi Pan, Polina Proutskova, Coralie Vincent, and especially Karen Ludke for their valuable contributions to this endeavour, which have aided us in creating the current version of the AIRS Digital Library. We also could not have accomplished this new version of the DL without the help of the AIRS Director, Dr. Annabel J. Cohen.

The primary purpose of the AIRS Digital Library is to enable researchers worldwide to access data and collaborate on research related to singing. In the first instance the researchers are those affiliated with the AIRS project. A secondary purpose is to archive the work of the AIRS project. 

AIRS DL use is primarily for researchers, however certain collections will be of particular use to teachers, parents, community leaders, and practitioners. For ethical reasons, access to many of the audio-visual files is limited to researchers and other professionals who have created and been approved for an account on the AIRS site. The restriction arises in regard to consent forms signed for release of the data and in accordance with the ethics review boards in conjunction with Canadian Tri-Council Ethic policy.
 

Structure

The AIRS Digital Library is integrated with the main AIRS website and it uses the same login ID and password to determine whether a user can view or edit a file or the saved information about a file. Files and collections of files in the AIRS Digital Library are known as ‘resources’.  Privacy features of the Digital Library make it possible to restrict viewing and management of specific resources contained to specific users or groupings of users. Selection of privacy level is done at the time a resource is ingested into the DL.  These privacy levels, also known as access policies are:

  • Public
  • AIRS registered users
  • AIRS sub-theme collaborators only
  • Uploader (owner) and named collaborators
  • Uploader (owner) only.

Digital Library resources can be viewed and downloaded by the general public (without logging in) only if that specific resource is designated as ‘public’. Resources can only be created by AIRS members, and those resources can only by edited or deleted by the uploader or AIRS users designated as ‘contributors’ of the resource.

There are multiple ways to access files held within the AIRS Digital Library. Users may browse items that have been grouped by theme or sub-theme, or search for individual files using the basic and advanced search functions.

Primary access to the Digital Library is provided through the AIRS Digital Library Landing Page, available at http://airsplace.ca/dllanding where browsing all collections and files begins, and where convenient pre-configured searches of each sub-theme and links to each AIRS members’ uploaded and/or authored resources are provided. 

There are currently three Themes in the digital library:

  1. Development;
  2. Education, and
  3. Well-Being.

Each Theme and Subtheme has it own collection, and each Subtheme has its own sub-collections named for the AIRS principal reserchers in each of the Subthemes.
 

Searching the Digital Library

Basic search

Type your search term(s) in the basic search box; put quotes around phrases. To search on an author's name, type the captialized last name in the basic search box. Click the “Search” button or hit "Enter".  After search results are displayed the right column displays a number of options to refine the results. At the top is the “Sort” section where search results are sortable by title, date created, and publication date. The “search facets” are also shown in the right column. Facets groups search results in categories of: title, author(s), theme, keywords, language(s), music genre, and publication date.  These categories allow for further filtering of search results. 

Advanced search

To access the advanced search functions, click the drop down arrow in the “Field” field of the “Advanced Search” section and choose the field you wish to query. Available fields include: title, author, theme, music genre, language, keywords, collection, publication date, date created, and file uploader.  Type your search term(s) in the “Search Terms” field. More than one field can be searched at the same time by clicking on the “+” or “-“ in this section and another “Search Terms” field appears where you can type further search criteria for the second (or more) field. These options allow one to search pre-set fields by phrase or to search and omit terms from the search.  Each search field that is exposed must include at least one search term.   Click “Search” when all “Search terms” fields have been filled.

AIRSPLACE

AIRS staff are working towards providing the results of Project research, so that information and research findings can be shared amongst the researchers and interested individuals.  Please direct any questions or comments regarding the AIRS Web site to the AIRS Information Technology Coordinator. Contact information can be found on our Contact AIRS page.