LibGuides: Music: Get Started

Background Information

The following resources provide background information on a wide range of topics. Start here to get a sense of the scholarly context surrounding the work, composer, artist, or issue you're researching.

Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new window
Online access to 4 major music reference works: Grove Music Online, the Oxford Dictionary of Music, the Encyclopedia of Popular Music, and the Oxford Companion to Music.
Classical Music Reference Library This link opens in a new window
Music Online: Classical Music Reference Library brings together a variety of essential reference materials, spanning the entire history of Western classical music. Includes Baker's Dictionary of Music, Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, and Baker's Student Encyclopedia of Music.
Cambridge Companions Complete Collection This link opens in a new window
Full text access to "Cambridge companion to. . ." series of books in the areas of literature, music, classics, philosophy, religion, and culture.
Garland Encyclopedia of World Music This link opens in a new window
Music Online: The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music is a comprehensive resource devoted to music research of all the world's peoples. Each volume contains an overview of a geographic region, a survey of its musical heritage, and a description of specific musical genres, practices, and performances.
African American Music Reference This link opens in a new window
Music Online: African American Music Reference includes major reference works, biographies and personal narratives, manuscripts, song-sheets, lyrics, discography data, and other text sources to cover jazz, spirituals, civil rights songs, slave songs, minstrels, rhythm and blues, and gospel.

Go-To Research Resources

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Full text archive of selected core scholarly journals in various disciplines. All parts of the journals are scanned, including any images.
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text This link opens in a new window
A bibliography of writings about music featuring citations, abstracts, and indexes. It covers nearly one and a half million publications from the early 19th century to the present on traditional music, popular music, jazz, classical music, and related subjects. 260 of the periodicals are included as full text.
International Index to Music Periodicals (IIMP) (1784 - Present) This link opens in a new window
(Recent title change to Music Periodicals Database) Journal articles, magazines, etc. relating to music. Especially good for locating reviews, obituaries, articles from popular news sources (ex: Rolling Stone). Some full text.

What's Where?

Scores, CDs, performing-arts related DVDs, and a selection of performing arts-related books are held in the Performing Arts Resource Center (PARC) in the Performing Arts Building. Most books and literature are located in the main library's Stacks. Some DVDs and all LPs are held in the Instructional Media Center (IMC) in the main library.