Last summer, I met with fellow music enthusiast and partner in early literacy crime Heather (Little Literacy Librarian) to discuss the lack of resources specifically geared at music programming. There is Singable Picture Books with Emily, Storytime Song chords by Shauna Tominey, and (of course) Jbrary for all your recorded storytime rhyme needs. But what if you are looking for recorded music that deals with a specific theme? What if you need another song that uses rhythm sticks in your storytime or classroom?

Spawning from the minds of two youth librarians, Song Catchers Library emerged. Serving as a simplified database for recorded music, educational professionals can search by a hierarchical list of categories through our pages at the top, the tag clouds on the side, or simply by searching the site. I’m sure there is a much better organizational model out there for something like this (hello, information science graduates!) but we, as the administrators, are already familiar with the ease of WordPress blogging. Furthermore, pages, categories, and tags fulfill our basic need and the format is clean and accessible.

In addition to recorded music, we also wanted to provide rhymes that take a familiar tune but rewrite the lyrics in order to fit a theme or action. We’ve called these re-tunes and we hope that they provide fun additions to storytimes that will spotlight the ability to turn anything into a song. SongCatchers Library also provides a page of recorded lullabies (great to highlight in baby storytimes), and classic recorded songs.

As the library grows, it inevitably becomes more useful. Because we are only two librarians we seek your assistance! Do you have your own catalog of recorded music? Submit your songs on our main page by filling out the survey. When time allows, we will add these submissions to our site.

We hope you enjoy the site and please let us know what you think!