The C. B. Newton Library

Research Guide - Music -

The recommendations listed below represent some, but certainly not all, of the library resources worth exploring as you being a research assignment in this subject area. Please consult your teacher and/or a librarian for further suggestions.

Print Resources: Reference Collections

Begin with encyclopedias and reference works specific to your subject matter:

Call No.	Title
ML100 .N48	The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians(20v.)
ML100 S37 2002	Oxford Companion to Music
ML102 J3 N48 2002	The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz(3v.)
ML102 M88 G3 2001	Ganzl's Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre (3v.)
ML102 P66 G84	Encyclopedia of Popular Music (8v.)
ML105 B16 2000	Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (6v.)

Print Resources: Circulating Collections

Use the library online catalog (IPAC) to find additional resources from the circulating collections. Subject headings in library catalogs follow standardized formats, in Pingry's case Library of Congress Subject Headings. Plan your searches thinking about this organization.

Sample Subject Heading:	Music-18^th century-History and criticism
	Opera-History
	Jazz

Subscription Databases: (From the Pingry Library Web Page)

EBSCOHost
Periodical articles and abstracts, especially Academic Search Elite

Proquest
Periodical articles and abstracts, including the New York Times and Proquest Historical Newspapers

SIRS Knowledge Source
The component entitled SIRS Renaissance contains full- text humanities periodical articles in the arts.

Internet Resources:

Big Bands Database

Center for the History of Music Theory and History

Music Resources on the Internet--An excellent place to begin.

Operabase

Music Resources on the Internet

Resources of Scholarly Societies:Music - Good resource for academic sites.

Yahoo Music Resources - A good all purpose A to Z resource for music.

RISM-US Home Page - International inventory of musical sources--A comprehensive documentation of the worldwide existing musical sources.

The Opera Schedule Server

Opera Companies on the Web

Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920 - American Memory Collection/Library of Congress

Additional information

Before beginning: The following suggestions apply to the research process in general and not just to researching on the Internet. A good experience in research is the product of a planned, organized, and systematic approach to the entire process.

Think about the topic. Develop a focus.
What is it you need to know?
Who is the intended audience?
What type of report is demanded?
Develop a list of keywords. Find synonyms in a thesaurus.
Look for related subject terms in the library catalog and indexes.
Follow the steps of the research process as recommended in such guides as the Cornell University Libraries.

Using the Internet:

The Internet as a research tool is one part of the process of information gathering necessary for successful investigation of a topic. In exploring Internet resources, remember that it is best to first look in the subscription services available to you at the

Recommended Search Engines and Meta-Search Engines:

No one search engine has indexed the entire web. Each search engine uses a program, referred to as a "spider," that visits web pages searching for terms.

All The Web
Google
Kartoo
Teoma
Vivisimo

Recommended Directories:
Unlike search engines, directories are composed by people who evaluate the content of web sites and organize them into broad subject categories.

Librarian's Index to the Internet
Internet Public Library
Virtual Reference Desk (NJ State Library)
Resource Discovery Network
Yahoo

Citing Internet Resources
Consult the Pingry Manual of Style for acceptable citation formats.

Plagiarism:
A few guidelines in this regard

Plagiarism: What It Is and How to Recognize and Avoid It (University of Indiana)
What is Plagiarism? (Georgetown University)
Avoiding Plagiarism (Purdue University OWL-Online Writing Lab)

Back to The C.B. Newton Library