The Mason OER Metafinder helps you find Open Educational Resources with a real-time, simultaneous search across 21 different sources of open educational materials. Mason searches OER repositories like OpenStax, OER Commons, MERLOT and sites like HathiTrust, DPLA, Internet Archive and NYPL Digital Collections, where valuable but often overlooked "open" educational materials may be found. In this case, "open" is in quotes because the materials in these additional digital collections have some Copyright restrictions. They are, however, widely and reliably accessible to students on the web and can be curated in your course following Fair Use.
The Mason OER Metafinder allows users to do a deeper web search than a typical Google search, revealing documents, essays, etc.
Here are some examples of specific and useful OER content for the Performing Arts: Music and Dance
Free to access and use through the library.
Grove Music Online provides full text access to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 2nd edition (2001). It also includes the The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992), and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd Edition (2001), as well as some coverage of world and popular music.
Digital Theatre Plus provides streaming access to digitally captured British theatrical, dance, opera, and symphonic performances from houses such as the The Globe Theatre of London, The Royal Shakespeare Company, the Young Vic, The Liverpool Everyman Theatre, & The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. It also includes archival captures of Broadway productions and opera performances by the Spanish company Gran Teatre del Liceu. A wide selections of behind-the-scenes documentaries and teaching/learning resources to facilitate a deeper understanding of the works being presented are also available.
National Theatre Collection brings the stage to life through access to high definition streaming video of world-class productions and unique archival material offering significant insight into theatre and performance studies. Through a collaboration with the U.K.'s National Theatre, this collection offers a range of digital performance resources never previously seen outside of the National Theatre’s archive.
Fair Use is broad because it includes all other materials that are not Creative Commons, and that our library does not have direct license to use. Interlibrary Loan is an additional resource in finding supplemental materals that can be used under fair use. Below are some helpful links to examples, information, and scenerios in better understanding fair use doctrine,
Instructors in the performing arts who want to reduce reliance on expensive textbooks and anthologies face some extra challenges: performed materials often have multiple levels of copyright involved: composer or playwright, performing ensemble, multiple performers. They also rely on the work of performers and institutions outside the university system who need to be compensated for their work. Music and video performances are only rarely provided in truly free and open access venues. But combining open educational resources and other copyright-compliant methods of access can reduce costs for students while respecting the rights of artists. The three main legal bases for distributing pre-existing material to your students are: