Research Guides: MU 240: American Music: Finding Articles

Databases

Library databases have access to articles from journals, magazines, and newspapers. Every database has different content. This makes it important to use a database that has content on the subject you are researching. In addition, be sure to search in more than one database to find information.

Check out these recommended databases to get started:

Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
A scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 4,770 full-text journals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals.
This multi-disciplinary database offers an enormous collection of the most valuable full-text journals, providing users access to critical information from many sources unique to this database. It includes more than 13,780 indexed and abstracted journals and provides full-text for 4,770 journals, including full-text for 4,000 peer-reviewed titles. You will find PDF backfiles to 1975 or further as well as searchable cited references for more than 1,050 journals. This database is an excellent source of peer-reviewed, full-text for STEM research, as well as for the Social Sciences and Humanities.
Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
This multidisciplinary online reference library provides access to a selection of 601 reference books and 3,412,690 entries.
Credo Reference also includes cross-references to other full text titles containing related information.
Gale Ebooks This link opens in a new window
Online encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. You can search across all titles at once or select an individual title to search.
History Research Center (History Online) This link opens in a new window
Collection of reference databases containing biographies, events & topics, overview essays, primary sources and more. The content covers American, Modern World, and Ancient and Medieval History.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR's archival journal collections include more than two thousand journals dating as far back as 1665. Multidisciplinary and discipline-specific journal and ebook collections are offered, covering more than 50 academic disciplines in the Humanities, Life Sciences, and Social Sciences.
Naxos Music Library (NML) This link opens in a new window
An enormous online library of music, with over 1.7 million tracks; features primarily classical music, but also includes jazz, blues, contemporary instrumental, and world music.
The world´s largest online classical music library, offering streaming access to more than 120,000 CDs with more than 1.7 million tracks, standard and rare repertoire. Over 800 new CDs are added to the library every month. The contents can be searched by composer, work, genre and label; by keyword search and by a sophisticated advanced search engine with up to 11 combined search criteria. NML provides liner notes for most recordings and listeners can create personalized playlists or use predefined Naxos Music Library playlists.
New York Times (1980 – current) This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive digital coverage back to 1980 is available for this internationally renowned U.S. newspaper, searchable in a Proquest database.
Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new window
Includes Grove Music Online (featuring the full text and updates of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 2nd ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd Ed), The Oxford Dictionary of Music, and The Oxford Companion to Music.

*Note: you can save content/searches by creating a Personal Profile (top right). Please ignore the institutional sign in underneath the "Caldwell University" text (left of page).
ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
This multidisciplinary resource contains full-text journal articles, trade journals and consumer publications from 47 of ProQuest's most highly used databases, with a variety of content types across over 160 subjects. Subject areas include the arts and humanities, business, health, medicine, science, the social sciences, and news.

Oxford Music Online Subject Guides

NOTE: These guides from Oxford Music Online focus more on classical music, rather than popular music.

Website Evaluation Tips

Check out these tips when deciding to use an online source. Always be skeptical.

Authority: Who is responsible for creating the web page? Is there a publisher or sponsor of the web page? Can you find information about the author and publisher?
Audience: Who is this web site created for? Is the content geared towards an age group or population group?
Accuracy: How does the information compare to other sources?
Content: What is the content of the web site: images, articles, a blog? The type of domain (.edu, .gov, .org) may provide some clues about the information. Can you detect a bias? Are there cited references?
Currency: How recent is the web site? Is there information on when it was last updated?