All the music from the former African American Music collection is now in American Song. The music of all Americans, including African Americans, is now consolidated in an expanded American Song.

If you have been a user of the old African American Music, you'll find all your playlists, course folders, and login information from African American Music in American Song.

If you're accustomed to the old African American Music collection, you might want to restrict your searches here in American Song specifically to African American music. You can do so in one of the following two ways:

• From the top toolbar, click Browse Genres. On the search screen, select the subject category called African American Music. You can narrow further by sub-genre, ensemble, artist, etc.
• From the top toolbar, click either Browse Albums or Browse All Recordings. Both search screens have a box labeled restrict results to African American content only. You'll see the box on the upper right hand corner of either search screen.

Additional tips to consider:

Type your search term(s) into one or more of the search term input boxes, and click the drop down box to the left of each search term box to display a "drop-down" menu of search types. You can search by Keyword, Work/Track Title (song title), name of Instrument, or [recording] Artist's name. To the right of each of these "drop-down" menus is a "Select from List" link you can click after selecting a search type.

For example, if you select "Artist" as your search type and then click "Select from List," a pop-up window will appear (provided your web browser's pop-up blocker is deactivated) you can then browse a list of artists. Clicking on an artist's name then automatically places that name in the search input box. The same goes for the other types of searches you can select.

When you are ready, click the Submit Query button. Another interesting feature of this service is that you can arrange favorite artists and tracks into personal "Playlist Folders." To access this option, click the "Playlist" tab at the top of the page when the African American Song database appears.

Playlists require a simple registration and an e-mail account so that after you log into the database (at home, for example), you can further customize and access content you enjoy, while other friends or family members using the computer can do the same without disturbing your playlists.