Skip to Main Content

Music (General): Home

Resources in music

Locate Journal Articles

A. UIW libraries are subscribed to the Music Periodicals Database (formerly International Index to Music Periodicals Full Text (IIMP-Full Text): Music journal resource including both scholarly and popular sources. Subject coverage includes music education, performance, ethnomusicology, musical theater, theory, popular music forms, composition and more.

B. In case you know which music journal you are looking for, UIW Libraries has access to many music journals full-text online and in print format. Click on "Articles+" tab  under the "NestSearch" section on the library's main page. Then, click on "Journals List tab". Type the journal title (omit initial articles) and press enter to see if UIW libraries has access to the journal through databases in electronic format online or has it in its print journals collection located on the second floor of the Mabee library (main campus).

In case you want to browse what music journals the library has access to, click on "Advanced Search" tab under "NestSearch". On the next screen, change "Any Field" in the first box to "Subject". Type "Music" in the search box. Select "Electronic Journals" or "Print Journals" under "Resource Type" box. Choose "Books & More" under "search Scope" and click on search.

C. UIW libraries has also subscription to RILM Abstracts of Music Literature  the most comprehensive music database in the world. This database covers over 10,000 music journals from around the world with over half a million records. Remember that this database is mainly citations and abstracts to articles only and you have to use the ILLiad Interlibrary Loan service to receive the full texts of articles AFTER you are sure the library does not have access to the full text through other databases or in its print journal holdings. RILM will show you the availability of full-text articles through other databases if the library has access to them.

LibKey Nomad Browzine research tool by Third Iron

Discipline Librarian

Profile Photo
Farhad Moshiri
Contact:
Library-Room 205
210-829-3842
Media Collection, Music Collection, Copyright. Library liaison to Music Department.

Locate Books, Music Scores, and Media Recordings

NestSearch (Using NestSearch box on UIW libraries webpage)

 

NestSearch option works like the popular Google search except unlike a Google search the results are not unreliable information from World Wide Web. NestSearch searches academic specific databases including the local catalog. Type your search terms in "Everything" tab in NestSearch box and click on "Go". When you get the results, on the left column under "Resource Type" choose Books, Articles, Music Scores, Video Recordings and Sound Recordings for desired format (you may need to open "Show More" and choose the format.

Using quotation marks:

If you are searching for a music score (sheet music) of a single song or Art Song (Lied) or an Aria from an opera that usually is published in a collection, use the keyword search option (Any Field). Put the title of the song in quotation marks and click on search tab. For example, if you're looking for the Aria: La Donna e mobile from Verdi's opera Rigoletto, you put the aria's title in quotation marks: "La Donna e mobile" and search. If you receive many results, choose the limit option and limit the type of the material to music score. If the title of the song is not unique and many composers have songs with the same title (such as "Serenade", etc.) , then use the composer's last name and the title together in your search. Be careful if you search for a song (lied) that is part of a song cycle. In almost all cases, individual song titles of a song cycle are not searchable. Normally the general title of the song cycle is searchable through the catalog. For example, Schubert's Winterreise includes 24 songs. Make sure to search for the song cycle's title in order to find the individual songs.

Using truncation:

You can expand your search results by using truncation. For example, if you are searching for music therapy for autistic individuals, the best way to search is to put music therapy in quotation marks and use truncation for autistic by using an asterisk symbol after autis. Your search would be: "music therapy" and autis*. This way your search results will include both autism and autistic. The reason you should put music therapy in quotation marks is if you don't, your search will result in a large number of records that include music or therapy that may not be related to music therapy at all. But when you put music therapy in quotation marks it only shows records that include music therapy.

In addition to UIW libraries holdings of printed music scores and scores on CD-ROM in the Media Collection, there are free online resources for music scores that are in public domain. See MUSOPEN that includes both scores and recordings in Public Domain or Creative Commons (free of copyright). Attention should be paid to use these scores since they represent 19th century editorial conventions not today's conventions.

RISM : Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (Intl. Inventory of Musical Sources)

is another important database of musical sources, the majority of which are music manuscripts dating from before 1800. Original sources are available from the libraries, music archives, and private collections as indicated in the RISM database. These institutions can often be approached for reproductions.

Please pay attention to the music scores in these websites since their editorial practices are old in most cases (that is why they are in Public Domain).  

For more tips on finding music recordings in both CD and DVD formats please see the Media Search Tips .  

In case the library does not own what you're looking for, you can use the ILLiad Interlibrary Loan service to obtain it from another library. Ask the reference librarian to help you to use the interlibrary loan service.

Music Databases

Media equipment available at the Mabee Library (main campus) and the Music Department Listening Lab

Media equipment available at the Mabee Library (Main campus):

  • 13 computers at the library's computer lab (Cardinal's Nest) have DVD/CD players.
  • The library has 4 external DVD/CD drives for check out.
  • The library has 2 DVD/Blu-Ray/CD multi region/format players for check out.
  • The library has several headphones for check out.

Media equipment available at the Music Department  Listening Lab:

  • Three listening stations with CD / LP (Vinyl) record / Audio Cassette players.
  • The Music Department Listening Lab is open 10-15 hours a week. The hours of operation is posted on the lab for each semester.
Staff LADR