Research
Tips
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Library Guides
Librarians have written
a number of different guides to help you use and find resources.
To access all guides, on the main page, under Find,
click on Guides.
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Reference Resources
Reference resources include encyclopedias, dictionaries and
other materials you use to "refer" to. Use these resources
for background information on a topic.
For
home or off campus access please use your WSU Login.
ONLINE REFERENCE RESOURCES
PRINT REFERENCE RESOURCES
(Encyclopedias and Dictionaries)
Listed below are some
selected examples. Browse the shelves in the reference collection,
Middle Level under the call number
M and on Reference Table 2A to see many more reference books on
music:
- The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (REF
ML102.P66G84 1998)
- The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre
(REF ML102.M88G3 2001)
- Garland Encyclopedia of World Music
(REF ML100.G16 1998 )
- The Hymn Tune Index (REF ML128.H8T46
1998 )
- Infinite Elvis: An Annotated Bibliography
(REF ML 134.5 .P73 H56 2001)
- Music Hound: This series includes
Music Hound titles on Rock, Jazz, Blues, R&B, Country
and Folk. All in the M section of the reference collection,
middle level
- New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
(Reference table 3A) -- This contains long articles on a wide
variety of subjects. Each article has a bibliography. Online version
is listed above.
- New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments and Instrument
Makers (Reference table 3A) --
- The New Grove Dictionary of American Music
(REF ML101.U6N48 1986)
- The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (REF
ML102.J3N48 2001)
- New Harvard Dictionary of Music (REF
ML 100 .N485 1986) -- has definitions of musical terms and historical
articles. See "Education in the United States" for a
history of music teaching practices.
- Rap Whoz Who (REF
ML400 .S77 1996)
- Rocket Man: The Encyclopedia of Elton John (REF
ML410.J64 B4 1995)
- Story of Rock 'n' Roll
(REF ML3534.S87 1995 )
- Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music
(REF ML102 .P66 V57 2002)
- Women Composers : music through the ages
(REF M2.W88 1996)
- World Chronology of Music History
(REF ML161.E4)
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Finding Books,
Scores, CDs and other media
Catalogs: Catalogs
tell you what a specific library owns. Use the WSU Stewart
Library's online catalog, to
find scores and other books on music. You can search by keyword
or alphabetically browse by author, title or subject. Use WorldCat
to find books in other libraries. For
home or off campus access please use your WSU Login.
Call Numbers: Call
numbers are the address of a specific book, recording, video, or
all issues of a journal or magazine. We use the Library of Congress
system which uses letters and number subject codes.
- M - Music
- ML - Literature on Music
- MT - Musical Study & Instruction
Location Codes:
Location codes tell you the general area of the library to look
in. General Collection means books that
can be checked out. Music General Collection books are
on the Top Level of the library.
Finding things
in the catalog:
-
Scores:
To find scores by a specific composer, do a general keyword
search using the composer's name and the word scores.
For example, to find scores for music by Mozart, enter Mozart
scores as a general keyword search. Scores are generally
found in the M1 -M1490 call number area.
-
Music Books:
Most music books are found in the General Collection under the
call number "M" on the Top Level. It is useful to
browse the shelves to get an overview of the music collection.
- CDs & other recordings:
- Search by general keyword or alphabetically browse by author/composer,
title or subject
- Be sure to limit by CD's, Cassettes, Tapes in the
Limits box.
- Use WorldCat
to find music in other libraries, locally and globally
- Select
Sound Recordings. Be aware sound recordings may
not be available via interlibrary loan
Audio tapes, CD's
and videos are housed on the Lowel Level of the library. The
CD collection is to the north of the Circualtion Services desk.
LP albums are in a small room nearby; ask at the Circulation Services
desk for assistance.
Interlibrary Loan:
If we do not own a particular book or article you need, we will
borrow it for you from another library through Interlibrary
Loan.
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Finding Articles
Popular Magazines
versus Scholarly Journals: Popular versus scholarly
has to do with the audience:
- Popular - these are written for a general audience
and are usually called magazines. They are written in easy
to understand language, often with pictures - you can find them
at Albertson's or Walmart. Examples are: Time,
People, Elle, Outdoor Life, Smithsonian, National Geographic.
- Scholarly - these are written for a specialized
or professional audience and usually called journals. The
are also called professional, academic, peer reviewed and refereed
journals. They are written by experts using scholarly language
for other experts or students. They have reference lists
or bibliographies. You can find them at the library and
occasionally at Barnes & Noble. Examples are:
Journal of Musicology, Music Theory, JAMA (Journal
of the American Medical Association), The Historian.
Primary versus
Secondary Sources: primary/secondary has to do with
the writer's closeness to what s/he's describing.
- Primary - the author is writing about something
they observed or researched in person. Examples: news
reports by eyewitnesses, letters, journals, some government records,
most statistics, science experiments, most research.
- Secondary - the author is decribing something
other people observed or researched. Examples: most
popular magazine articles, many newspaper articles, reviews of
research.
Don't confuse
popular/scholarly with primary/secondary. Popular sources
can be primary sources and scholarly sources can be secondary sources.
Examples:
- An article in Newsweek about Mick Jagger, written by a reporter
who interviewed Mick Jagger is a popular, primary account.
- An article in Newsweek about the Rolling Stones, written by
a reporter who compiled accounts of people who were at various
past concerts is a popular, secondary account.
- An article in the Journal of Musical Theory about the
author's original research into harmonics is a scholarly/primary
source.
- An article in the Journal of Musical Theory that reviews
the research done by others on harmonics is a scholarly/secondary
source.
ARTICLE DATABASES
To find articles on your
topic you need to use article databases. Use our Database
Finder page to access these and many more databases.
For home or off campus access please
use your WSU Login.
If you are doing a topic
that includes other fields, check those databases as well.
For example:
- For the psychology of music, use a psychology database.
- For the impact of music on stress responses, try a medical database.
EJOURNALS
Ejournals
is a database of all the full-text journals, magazines and newspapers
that are available to WSU library patrons in all of our different
databases. You can search the name of the journal by title
or title keyword to get a link to the resource.
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Other ways to find Music
and Recordings
From the Internet:
Many different types of music are available on the Internet. These
can be stored in many different file types. Use the Web
Resources links below and Search
Engines to search for audio files on the Internet.
- Audio Search Engines
- MP3 & MIDI:
- Miscellaneous
From Online Stores:
Order music online from Amazon.Com,
Barnes and Noble or many other stores.
Buy by the song at places such as: Rhapsody,
MP3.com, iTunes,
and even WalMart.
(NOTE: listing of commercial sources is meant as to provide
examples and does not imply endorsement - read the fine
print before you buy.)
Interlibrary Loan:
If we do not own a particular CD, Video or other media needed, we
can try to borrow it for you from another library through Interlibrary
Loan. Be aware that it is often difficult to order media
as many libraries do not lend audio tapes, CD's or videos.
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Music Piracy
Whether you think it's
fair or not, downloading music that's not specifically labelled
as free is often considered stealing. Here are some sites that look
at the issue.
- Fair Use -
from Stanford University
- The Music Piracy
Myth - from Tim O'Reilly's Weblog - interview with and links
to information about George Ziemann, a musician who supports music
sharing.
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Web
Resources
Here are
some WWW sites to get you started. Most of these will take you to
other links, so explore!
- AMG's All Music Guide -
From the publishers of the standard reference, All Music Guide,
this site contains ratings and reviews of more than 400,000 record
albums. Search by artist, album, song, style, or label.
- ASCAP - The American
Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers
- The American Folklife
Center at the Library of Congress - created as a repository
for American Folk Music, and all aspects of folklore and folklife
from this country and around the world
- Best Children's
Music - a very select, but exceptional, library of children's
music that's updated regularly
- Broadcast Music, Inc.- a
performing rights group.
- The Electronic Music Foundation
- everything you want to know about electronic music.
- K-12 Resources
for Music Educators - resources for music educators and students
of all areas and educational levels
- Core
Music Reference Guide - from the William & Gail Cook Music
Library at the Indiana University School of Music
- How
to Find Sheet Music on the Internet
- The Lester S. Levy
Collection of Sheet Music - of Johns Hopkins University contains
over 29,000 pieces from1780 to 1960 including full images of those
published before 1923 in public domain
- Musica Viva - free public
domain sheet music - GIF files free, others require a subscription.
- JWPepper.com - world's
largest retailer of sheet music
- Maarten's
Music Links - good source for world music.
- Music
Resources - The Sibelius Academy, a conservatory in Helsinki,
provides a list of music sites on jazz, blues, rock, and pop pages.
It also covers famous composers, gospel, instruments, research,
theory, and opera
- Voice of the
Shuttle: Music - large list of links from UC-Santa Barbara
- Worldwide
Internet Music Resources - from the William and Gayle Cook
Music Library Indiana University School of Music
"The Hidden Web" consists
of sites that search engines can't find, usually due to the type
of files they contain, such as PDF and database files. Many of these
sites are very useful. The best way to find them is to use directory
listings. Many of the sites listed above list Hidden Web sites. Try
Google:Music
& Launch: Music on Yahoo. Other
good general directories include: Librarian's
Index to the Internet, and The
Internet Public Library as well as the directory features of
Google and Yahoo. Search engines such as Google are just beginning
to search some of these sites.
You can also use a search
engine to find more specific pages. I recommend www.google.com. Other
good search engines to try are: alltheweb.com
and ask.com. Kartoo
charts results graphically - give it a try. And remember: evaluate,
evaluate, evaluate!
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