Best Bet Databases for Music
- Music Periodicals Database (formerly IIMP) This link opens in a new windowProvides indexing and abstracts for many international music periodicals from a variety of countries. Some of the indexed journals are available in full-text.
- Naxos Music This link opens in a new windowStream audio from over 100 different labels. Includes western classical music, jazz, world music, and other genres. CD notes are provided for titles with an “About this recording” link.
- Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new windowMusic encyclopedia, offering coverage of music, musicians, music-making, and music scholarship.
Common Research Questions for Music
- When checking out musical scores or sound recordings, please pay attention to any "Check for X pieces" prompt on Alma—it means to you need to count all the parts of the items. Number of pieces includes the bound item or sound recording, plus any extra pieces, so a bound score with 4 pieces in a folder would be 5 parts. Failure to count parts could lead to problems for the library and/or the library user when they check the item in.
- When you check out an LP to anyone, ask if the are going to listen to it on site and if they need help playing it. If they are listening on the LP turntables in the Music and Media Library 4th floor, they may also need headphones and/or a headphone jack adapter.
- If a library user wants to limit their search for physical media to certain formats, go to Library Search Advanced Search and use the Local Call Number field. DISC = LPs, CD = CDs, and DVD = DVDs.
- When library users are searching for music, especially particular songs, it is usually not helpful to enter anything in the "Title" field—because music scores or recordings often come with many pieces/songs published together, the piece you are looking for may show up only in the Table of Contents. Stick with the "Keyword" field.
- We have a lot of audio and video streaming content via Naxos databases—but they don't show up in Library Search; library users will need to search directly on a Naxos database. However, audio and video streaming from other sources, such as Alexander Street Press and Met Opera on Demand, do show up in Library Search.
- If someone can't find a book or musical score, pay attention to the item location in Library Search. There are three sizes of books (ML and MT): regular, oversize, and folio. There are also three sizes of scores (M): mini, regular, and folio. All of these have different location codes. There is also a reference location and new books location. They may be searching in the wrong section.
