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FYS 190F: Writing About Music

The Guide to Library Research provides an introduction to the search process, including an overview of "Scholarly" and "Popular" Publications.

Finding & Using Books

McCain Library has a wide range of print materials, including reference materials, scholarly books, and journals, that will be useful when researching your paper topics. You can search the online catalog, SOPHIA to find these resources.

You may want to physically browse the collection; the Library of Congress call number "M" corresponds with music related materials. You can find these on the Ground floor of the library. You'll find music-oriented history & criticism in the ML section.

Reference Books

Browse the M & ML sections in the Reference collection as well, on the 1st floor of the library. The reference set that will be most useful for this class is:

Contemporary musicians. Reference ML106.U3 C6 (60 volumes as of 9/14/2007)

Audiovisual Materials

The library has a wide array of sound recordings, as well as listening equipment, on the Ground floor. You can search the collection by entering your keywords & limiting your search with such criteria as language, location, or by "All sound recordings" in SOPHIA.

General Databases for Journal Articles

These general databases cover scholarly & popular publications. Most articles are available full-text.

Academic Search Complete

Research Library (at ProQuest)

Specialized Databases

Music databases:

GroveMusic: an integrated music resource on the web, including the full text of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (second edition), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (second edition). Sibelius offers links to audio files related to a variety of themes & topics. You can use the Sibelius Scorch plugin, which links directly to Sibelius files. Click here to get the plugin & browse Sibelius.

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature published by Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale, New York, contains records in over 200 languages; entries include original-language titles, title translations in English, full bibliographic information, and abstracts in English, as well as author, journal, and in-depth subject indexes.

Specialized Databases - Biography

Biography Reference Bank

Biography Resource Center

Arts & Humanities/Social Sciences databases:

JSTOR: full-text access to back issues of core journals in the humanities, social sciences and sciences. The complete back files of these journals have been digitized, many of which began in the 1800s.

Project Muse: full-text access to 220 quality journal titles from 37 scholarly publishers. Covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, visual and performing arts, cultural studies, gender studies, and many others.

News and Business Databases:

Business Source Complete (full-text)

Lexis-Nexis

Lexis-Nexis off campus access

Sociology Database

SocINDEX with Full Text

To find books at other libraries

WorldCat
Find books & publications owned by databases worldwide.

You do not need to know who owns a book or journal before placing an InterLibrary Loan request.

Does McCain Library have this journal? Is it full-text?

If the database you are searching does not include your journal or article, search the Journal/Article Locator.

This will show you if we have your journal through any database. The journal/article locator will also tell you if we have a publication in our print or microfilm collections. If we don't have access to the publication, you can request the article through Interlibrary Loan, or, check to see if another local library that you can visit owns it.

Other local libraries may have books in their collections on your topic. Try searching their catalogs for relevant materials.

Evaluating Web Pages

From the UC Berkeley Library:

Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask

For additional assistance, please contact the McCain Library Scottie Research & Rescue Desk in person, by phone (404-471-6096), email, or IM us at asclibrarian (AOL & Yahoo).