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Question #1
With holidays fast approaching and plays, pageants, and parties even closer, more and more patrons will be looking for seasonal audio. Many of these patrons will wait to the last minute, such as a panicked elementary school teacher who desperately needs a Christmas sing along CD for a recital tomorrow. The Library is closing in 15 minutes and all of your Library’s seasonal music is checked out. How can you find 5 sing along Christmas songs for your patron with such limited time?
I found an album called Christmas Is For Children in a quick Freegal search – it has a number of popular classic, non-religious songs to choose from, perfect for school.
if you head on down to freegal-town you can search for “sing along” and narrow it down by genre – christmas or holiday works. oddly enough, “holiday” gets you more christmas albums than “christmas” does. bah, humbug.
I was excited to see how many Christmas songs are available through Freegal. I will be using some of my 5 weekly downloads for expanding my playlists this winter! I’m especially excited about the Harry Belafante CD 🙂 The teacher in this scenario, might be interested in the 100 Kids Xmas Hits CD. Both of these I found with a keyword search for Christmas in Freegal. If the teacher needs more than 5 songs and has a CLP card, he or she might find the Smithsonian Global Sound resource useful. This streams music and has some wonderful traditional songs. I was interested to see several albums with songs from different countries. I just signed up for Hoopla, which I have been meaning to do for ages (so thank you for the extra nudge to get me to do this) and the music album options for Christmas are seemingly endless… It was also a super fast process to sign up, so it would be an easy one to explain to someone 15 minutes before the library closes.
Freegal!
Use Freegal Music, search “Christmas” and refine results by choosing “children’s” under genre. lots of albums to pick 5 songs from here, or type “christmas and childrens” in Hoopla and you get some selections there too.
Freegal has 15 or 20 Children’s Christmas CD’s. Hoopla has 10 children’s favorite Christmas songs that can be downloaded.
Freegal is the way to go. Went I searched I found some Christmas sing alongs especially for kids such as the Kids Christmas Sing-Along . Adults might enjoy singing along with Mitch Miller and the Gang!
Went to eCLP Music streaming sites, and looked at Music Online (Alexander Street Press). Found 96 results using keywords “Christmas” and “Children,” including titles like “The Children’s Christmas Party Album.”
I found “Christmas Kids” on Freegal.
I found three resources one can turn to.
1. Freegal
2. Hoopla
3. All Music under the Music and Film link under the Find Articles & more Page.
Freegal, Hoopla, and Naxos Music Library!
Freegal was a great resource for this situation! A quick search for children’s Christmas music returned more than a thousand results. The pressure of closing time isn’t a problem, either, since the teacher can sign up and browse online and then complete the transaction remotely.
I would show the panicked teacher to the CLP website, point to eCLP -> Freegal -> type “Christmas sing-along” -> et voila! (including Mitch Miller, which immediately made me a little weepy with nostalgia). I would then point out/demonstrate Hoopla and the other streaming services. I would then talk her through how to transport or access the songs at school – on her iPod/iPad, school room computer, smartphone, etc. If none of these approaches for her use will work, I would download some titles she wanted and email them to her as attachments.
I would show the patron Freegal and Hoopla.
I went immediately to Freegal. This is a life-saver resource and fun to browse.
I conducted searches in Freegal and Hoopla.
I enjoyed taking the time to browse the collection of holiday songs and albums in Freegal.
I think that Hoopla however was a more convenient resource in this scenario where a patron was in a rush.
I typed “Christmas” AND “Children” in the Search box along the top of the Hoopla page. I then was able to scroll down to the Music section of the page and see a small list of the twelve top Children’s Christmas music titles.
I would direct the patron to hoolpa: https://www.hoopladigital.com/search?results=&q=christmas&kind=MUSIC
I would show her Freegal. There are several Christmas sing-a-longs from which to choose. Also, I’d make sure that she’s comfortable accessing these when and where she needs them, via app or computer.
Even though Freegal and Hoopla both have good selections, I think I would push Hoopla in this case because the set-up and borrowing process is quicker and easier.
I was happy that entering “Christmas sing along” in Freegal’s search bar found many selections — in under a minute! Yes, explaining how to use Freegal would take a few more minutes, and the teacher would probably need to take a little longer to find lyrics to print for the kids, but it’s a good start.
Yep, eResources such as Freegal and Hoopla are great for this sort of thing! Patrons especially like Freegal since you can download the songs to your PC. If the patron only needs 5 songs, Freegal is the best, but if they’re looking for more than another service such as Hoopla would be the way to go. We love these downloadable services!
I would definitely use Freegal.
Freegal! I would walk the teacher through step-by-step so she could do it herself at the last minute before school one morning. I searched “Genres” in Freegal and found “Christmas” as a genre. When I browsed under “Artists” I found a number of children’s choirs and children’s chorus options. The first album under “children’s chorus” is: Kids Christmas Sing Along! Hoopla also has a genre search and browse option.
Freegal!!!!
Freegal
I would use freegal or hoopla ! But freegal would be preferable.
I would use FREEGAL.
Freegal.
I’d recommend Freegal for the 5 MP3 downloads, and make sure that the patron knew her PIN since it’s required for login. I would reset the PIN or give instructions to reset it as needed. If time permitted, the patron could log on and we could scan the offerings together. If not, I would give instructions as to how to log in at home or on the go.
I would suggest Freegal and assist in search.
I went to Freegal, looked under the genre of Christmas, found Children’s Chorus as an artist and that link led me to a great sing-a-long CD. I would tell the teacher about the 5 downloads per week and encourage her to go back for her professional, and personal, music interests and needs!
I would direct patron to Freegal and/or Hoopla.
I would send her to Hoopla. There are several children’s Christmas CDs there. She could get the lyrics online and print those out for her class.
Freegal and Hoopla are definitely the main resources I would send the teacher to.
Search Christmas kids on Freegal. 5 free downloads!
Freegal!
There are many good choices on Freegal. I found a Children’s Christmas Sing-A-Long on Hoopla that is available for download on mobile devices.
I would direct patron to Freegal
Introduce patron to Freegal.
I did a search in Freegal for “sing along Christmas” and came up with 500+ songs–all free and available to download. And it took me only about 30 seconds to pull up the service and type in the query.
If the patron is depending on just sources to find the songs herself, Freegal and Hoopla, as well as the Streaming Music databases under eCLP>Music are all good resources for her to use. This would, if we are assuming she doesn’t know how to use them, be explained in how to access from her own computer, tablet, or smartphone in order to “physically” bring them to school for use.
However, if the customer is banking on you to find physical versions of the songs for her to take to school because she doesn’t have time to do the research (who knows what her role for the recital is, if she’s really far behind on work…), I would do a search for most popular children’s sing-a-long songs for customer and guide her through the Freegal download process (if she has a flashdrive or an email to attach the music to) so she can make use of it tomorrow as needed. All of this would evidently take up time, but hopefully your co-workers understand the importance of the situation.
Freegal to the rescue! Walk the patron through the steps of downloading Christmas sing-a-long songs through freegal.
I would suggest Freegal
Question #1
With holidays fast approaching and plays, pageants, and parties even closer, more and more patrons will be looking for seasonal audio. Many of these patrons will wait to the last minute, such as a panicked elementary school teacher who desperately needs a Christmas sing along CD for a recital tomorrow. The Library is closing in 15 minutes and all of your Library’s seasonal music is checked out. How can you find 5 sing along Christmas songs for your patron with such limited time?
Answer #1
The two best resources to search for this are Hoopla and Freegal. On both I searched for Christmas AND Children. You can also add “sing*” to the search to narrow the results.
Hoopla – 17 results
Best find: Children’s Christmas Sing-A-Longs
The benefit of Hoopla is that you get the full album. You can download 8 albums per month, which is way more songs than Freegal, and certainly more at a time in a pinch. The drawback is that on a computer, Hoopla streams but doesn’t download. This is unreliable during a concert. You must be on an Android or iOS device to download. If the teacher had that capability, this would be my recommendation
Freegal – hundreds of results
Best Find: Sing the Christmas Hits! – children’s karaoke
The benefits of Freegal are that you can download songs onto a computer, and there are way more results. You have way fewer downloads though, so you need to be careful to preview everything to make sure you’re really getting what you want.
I would use Freegal