LibGuides: Music: Finding Articles

Using Databases

Databases are an integral part of modern research methods. Not only do databases provide a wide array of searches and results, but they also help narrow research topics in a specific subject area. Below are a few databases recommended for general and subject-specific research in music.

Music Specific Article Databases

Grove Music Online This link opens in a new window
Offers the full texts of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd Edition (2001), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992), The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd Edition (2001), The Oxford companion to Music (2011), and The Oxford Dictionary, 2nd Edition (revised 2006), as well as all subsequent updates. It includes 50,000 signed articles and 30,000 biographies. It is the most comprehensive source of information on all aspects of music in English.

Updated frequently, Grove Music Online is the world’s premier online music encyclopedia, offering comprehensive coverage of music, musicians, music-making, and music scholarship.
Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new window
Oxford Music Online allows the simultaneous searching of The New Grove Dictionary of Music, 2nd edition; The Oxford Dictionary of Music; and The Oxford Companion to Music.

An enhanced electronic version of the print Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians providing the most comprehensive and up-to-date resource on all aspects of music. Includes regular online updates of the complete text of the print edition with links to thousands of images, digital sound files and other related web sites.
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RILM Abstracts of Music Literature This link opens in a new window
The most scholarly and comprehensive index of music literature. Provides indexing and abstracts to articles, books, bibliographies, catalogues, conference proceedings, discographies, dissertations, ethnographic recordings, Festschriften, films, iconographies, and videos covered by the Repertoire International de Literature Musicale. Coverage is 1967-. Especially strong in musicology and music therapy, but covers all areas of music, including interdisciplinary materials.

Updated monthly. Produced by the RILM International Center at the City University of New York Graduate Center, this database is an international bibliography on music and related disciplines with citations to books, articles, videos, bibliographies, ethnographic recordings, dissertations, e-publications, films, catalogues, iconographies, critical commentaries to complete works, Festschriften, conference proceedings, reviews, recording notes, and pedagogical manuals if they are of scholarly interest. Indexes and abstracts over 500 scholarly journals and contains records in over 100 languages (titles and abstracts are in English). Print version also available.
Music Index This link opens in a new window
Indexes journal articles in over 640 international periodicals in the field of music and related disciplines, covering classical, popular, and world music. Includes periodicals in the field of music and related disciplines. Includes book reviews, recording and performance reviews, and obituaries.

Updated quarterly. Contains records describing articles in over 640 international periodicals in the field of music and related disciplines. Includes book reviews, recording and performance reviews, and obituaries.
Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals (RIPM) This link opens in a new window
RIPM Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals is an international, highly annotated database with detailed content analysis of writings on musical history and culture between 1800 and 1950 from over 140 periodicals

Updated semi-annually. The Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals (RIPM: Repertoire International de la Presse Musicale) indexes articles from over 60 international 19th and 20th-century music periodicals in all major languages. Citations include author and title of article, periodical data, and a brief note of contents (e.g., "review"). Annotations or abstracts are not included. Includes writings about composers, performers, and compositions, and provides a documentary history of 19th-century music and musical life.
Oxford Handbooks Online This link opens in a new window
The Oxford Handbooks contain in-depth, high-level articles by scholars at the top of their field. Each Handbook offers thorough introductions to topics and a critical survey of the current state of scholarship, creating an original conception of the field and setting the agenda for new research. UT Austin has access to all published handbooks in Music (2012-2020).

The Oxford Handbooks contain in-depth, high-level articles by scholars at the top of their field. Each Handbook offers thorough introductions to topics and a critical survey of the current state of scholarship, creating an original conception of the field and setting the agenda for new research. Handbook articles review the key issues and cutting-edge debates, as well as providing arguments for how those debates might evolve.
UT Austin currently has access to Handbooks in all available subject through 2021.
Oxford Bibliographies Online This link opens in a new window
These Bibliographies provide an authoritative guide to the current scholarship, expert recommendations and authoritative commentary on the best works available in the discipline covered, making them particularly useful for anyone beginning research. In Oxford Bibliographies in Music, each article, written and reviewed by top scholars in the field, is rich with citations and annotations, expert recommendations, and narrative pathways to the most important works for virtually all areas of music.
UT Austin has access to the all bibliographies in all subject areas.

These Bibliographies provide an authoritative guide to the current scholarship, expert recommendations and authoritative commentary on the best works available in the discipline covered, making them particularly useful for anyone beginning research.
UT Austin has access to the all bibliographies in all subject areas.

Interdisciplinary Databases

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Contains full-text peer reviewed journal articles as well as newspapers, blogs, wire services, and general interest periodicals from across all academic disciplines.

Updated daily. A comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full text database, with more than 5,300 full text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals. Offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,300 journals and a total of 10,900 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.
Features PDF content going back as far as 1865, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for 1,000 journals.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Includes a variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web. Google Scholar includes full text and citations.

Google Scholar uses the popular Google search engine to enable searches for scholarly materials such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from broad areas of research. It includes a variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web. Google Scholar includes full text and citations.
Use this link to access Google Scholar, and see our Google Scholar Guide for information on using this resource.
If you encounter a warning about the security certificate when using the FindIt@UT tool in Google Scholar, you can learn more about that using this guide.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Includes archives of over 1,000 leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work.

Updated regularly. Offers a high-quality, interdisciplinary archive to support scholarship and teaching. Includes archives of over 1,000 leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. The entire corpus is full-text searchable, offers search term highlighting, includes high-quality images, and is interlinked by millions of citations and references.
Members of the public can read online up to three articles for free every two weeks from a large subset of JSTOR journals via the Register & Read program. This program allows remote access. Non-UT students, faculty and staff who need more articles can contact library staff for other access options.

For more information on ebooks see the Ebook Guide
Project MUSE Premium Collection This link opens in a new window
Provider of humanities and social science content for the scholarly community, with complete, full-text versions of scholarly journals from leading university presses and scholarly societies.

Journals: Updated as issues are published. Project MUSE is a leading provider of humanities and social science content for the scholarly community, with complete, full-text versions of scholarly journals from leading university presses and scholarly societies.
Ebooks: Selected ebook titles from university presses and scholarly societies. All content from the print edition of the book is included in the digital edition. There are no DRM restrictions, and titles are accessible on some mobile devices. For further information, please consult the FAQ or tutorials and user guides
.
For more information on ebooks see the Ebook Guide
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Covers more than 12,000 journals in all subject areas. Also includes citations to conference proceedings.

Updated weekly. Covers more than 12,000 journals in all subject areas. Also includes citations to conference proceedings. Choose Search in order to search the database by topic, author journal or address. This search includes articles, reports, books and book reviews and may be searched by keyword (topic searching), author (person searching), institution, or geographical area. Choose Cited Reference Search to search for articles that cite an author or work. This search includes the list of references at the end of articles and will allow you to search by the cited author, cited work, cited year or a combination of the three. Choose Advanced Search to combine aspects of the other two searches. The default selection for searching is for all the citation databases and for all years of coverage; both selections can be changed from the main search screen at the time that you select your search.
The Web of Science platform currently provides temporary access to several databases that are not part of the Core Collection, including Biosis Citation Index, Data Citation Index, and Zoological Record

Newspaper Databases

Factiva This link opens in a new window
A global information resource, providing full-text access to top national and international newspapers (including full text of the Wall Street Journal), newswires, business journals, market research reports, analysts reports and web sites. Contains over 8000 publications with content from 118 countries in 22 languages.

Updated daily. A global information resource, providing full-text access to top national and international newspapers (including full text of the Wall Street Journal), newswires, business journals, market research reports, analysts reports and web sites. Contains over 8000 publications with content from 118 countries in 22 languages.
This database was formerly called Dow Jones Interactive.
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Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis®—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790.

Updated continually. Nexis Uni™ features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis®—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790—with an interface that offers discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.
Effective January 1, 2018, Nexis Uni™ replaces LexisNexis Academic.
Proquest Databases This link opens in a new window
Includes: Alt-Press Watch, Ethnic News Watch, Latin American Newsstream, Proquest Historical Newspapers (Austin American Statesman, Chicago Defender, LA Times, NY Times, Times of India, Washington Post, U.S. Hispanic Newsstream

Landing page for all Proquest databases with the exception of the History Vault.
Gale NewsVault This link opens in a new window
Includes: 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers (1600-1799), 19th Century U.S. Newspapers (1800-1900), Times Digital Archive (1785-1985)
Allows users to cross-search the library's three collections of historical newspapers from Gale:
- 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers (1600-1799)
- 19th Century U.S. Newspapers (1800-1900)
- Times Digital Archive (1785-1985)
Searches over 10 million digitized facsimile pages within these collections.

Interlibrary Loan

Interlibrary loan is a free service for current UT students, faculty and staff. UT-affiliated users can request books, articles, chapters and more from other libraries. Interlibrary loan is intended to fill the need for items that UT Libraries may not own or if current resources have been lost.

To request a loan of a physical item or to request a scan of a book chapter or article, please visit the Interlibrary Loan website and fill out a request.

Helpful Guides

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