The public library is offering a new service that has local musicians excited.
Prince Albert residents with a library card in good standing, meaning they have no fines on the card, are now able to access sheet music online.
Collections librarian Meghan O’Leary told the Herald that the library signed up for a one-year subscription of the database. It just opened to library cardholders at the beginning of the month.
“We have a very active music scene I would say in Prince Albert so we got a lot of people in the city who would really enjoy having the ability to view, print and look at sheet music,” O’Leary said.
The Naxos Sheet Music Library is available on http://www.jmcpl.ca/ under the digital library tab. The sheet music is under the movies and music section. At that point, users will be prompted to enter their log-in information. There’s many tabs to browse and various sheet music available for different instruments including piano and guitar. There’s also a vocals section.
The library will keep the subscription for a year, after which they will review how many people used the service and see about extending it.
“I thought that maybe it would be a good experiment at the very least to see if it gets any traction,” O’Leary explained.
The new service has one local musician and high school music teacher excited.
Kayleigh Skomorowski thinks its “awesome” that musicians will be able to access this resource during the pandemic when people are “shuttered at home.”
She added that it’s beneficial to have the media accompaniment to play along with.
Skomorowski explained that the service will also be handy for student musicians.
“Whenever a kid wanted to participate in music festival or work on some solos and stuff like that they would be relying either on their school teacher to have certain resources or they have to go and buy the sheet music online,” she said.
“Even then that didn’t necessarily have the kind of like accompaniment resources and stuff that are within that library system,” Skomorowski added.
O’Leary said the library hopes people are interested in the service and get their use out of it. She also has a personal interest in the service.
“I want to keep it because I also enjoy music and I’m part of the local concert choir here,” O’Leary said.
