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McCain Library

Guide to Music Research

The Guide to Library Research provides an introduction to the research 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. The online catalog, SOPHIA. Try a subject search or keyword search using your subject words.

You can also 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. Music-oriented history & criticism is in the ML section.

Reference Books

Check out the M & ML sections in the Reference collection as well, on the 1st floor of the library.

The New Grove dictionary of music and musicians, Ref. ML100 .N48 1980, v. 1-20

The New Harvard dictionary of music, Ref. ML100 .N485 1986

The New Oxford history of music, Ref. ML160 .N44, v. 1-10

The Oxford history of western music, Ref. ML160 .T18 2005, v. 1-6

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 publication date from SOPHIA's Advanced Search page.

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).

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.

Arts & Humanities 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.

Humanities Abstracts: citations to articles and book reviews in approximately 350 general-interest periodicals and periodicals in the humanities, including literature and history.

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.

Other useful databases:

WorldCat: find books & publications owned by databases worldwide. See below for information about Interlibrary Loaning procedures.

Finding a Full-Text article from a citation

If the database you are searching does not include the full-text of your article, search the Journal/Article Locator.

The journal/article locator will also tell you if we have a publication in library print or microfilm collections. Double-check by searching in SOPHIA for the journal title (not the article title). If we don't own or 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.