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Music : Just the Basics

Fall 2019

Basic Search Tips for Online Databases

♦Use quotation marks for phrases and titles:   "phantom of the opera"

♦Use the asterisk for truncation:  symphon*   [Note that the truncation symbol for InfoKat is a question mark.]

♦Use the question mark for wildcard searches  v?n   [will retrieve van and von].

♦Use Boolean operators AND OR NOT to refine your search.

♦Use limiters:  peer review only,  full-text,  dates, etc.

♦Check citations; they can lead you to more sources.

Search InfoKat Discovery

Search Music Index

Music Index is a citation index to music periodical literature and provides citations to book reviews, obituaries, news periodicals, and news and articles about music, musicians, and the music industry. Online coverage is from 1970 to the present.

Search RILM

Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM) publishes a comprehensive bibliography of writings on music serving the global music research community. RILM abstracts of music literature has over 730,000 records in 214 languages from 151 countries.

Search RILM
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Search RIPM

Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals/Répertoire international de la presse musicale (RIPM)  focuses on music and musical life from approximately 1766 to 1962. Currently, 292 volumes treating over 196 music periodicals have appeared; RIPM online consists of over 694,000 annotated records, updated every six months.

Search RIPM
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Search Academic Search Complete

Academic Search Complete
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Search JSTOR

The JSTOR digital archive includes more than 1,500 leading academic journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work.

The entire back runs of journals are always included. Also included are most recent issues of select academic journals through the Current Scholarship Program.

Search Music Periodicals Database

Music Periodicals Database provides indexing and abstracts for more than 425 international music periodicals. IIMP contains over 600,000 records, with complete runs of over ten important titles, such as the Journal of the American Musicological Society and Notes.

MPD has its own Research Guide with lots of good information on searching.

Search Google Scholar

Google Scholar Search