- St. Olaf Libraries
- Research Guides
- Music 141: Introduction to Musicology
- Secondary Sources: Research Databases
Music 141: Introduction to Musicology
Karen Olson
LibKey Nomad
Research and Instruction Librarian for Music & Fine Arts
Music Databases
The music-specific databases are mostly good for secondary sources -- but some of them have articles dating back to the 19th century that could be used as primary sources.
- Music Index This link opens in a new windowCovers classical and popular music, musicians, and the music industry, from 1970 to the present. Good source for industry articles about popular music.
- Music Periodicals Database This link opens in a new windowCovers scholarly and popular journals and magazines on music, from 1874 to the present. Slightly better than RILM for popular music research.
- Performing Arts Periodicals Database This link opens in a new windowCovers scholarly and popular journals and magazines on the performing arts, from 1864 to the present. Useful for research that involves dance or theater studies.
- RILM Abstracts of Music Literature This link opens in a new windowArticles, collections, and books. Especially good for western art music and ethnomusicology research.
Tip: RILM often includes separate records for each essay in a book of essays. If you click the Find it! button, though, Catalyst will sometimes say we don't have the book when we do, because it is searching for the essay's title, not the book title. If Catalyst says we don't have an article, check if the RILM record has a line for "Collected Work." That's the book title -- search in Catalyst for that.
Interdisciplinary Databases
These databases cover a wide range of subjects and topics, so they are good to use if you are just starting out or if you are looking for interdisciplinary material to provide broad context.
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new windowArticles on virtually every topic, drawn from scholarly journals, professional journals, trade magazines, news publications, and lifestyle magazines. Provides full-text access to over half of its 8000+ publications. Covers materials published 1975-present.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowFull-text scholarly journals articles in many disciplines. Dates of coverage vary by title, typically from the journal's first issue (sometimes in the eighteenth century or earlier) through about five years ago.