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Finding Music for the Community User

Finding music related materials can be difficult for those without an academic affiliation. This is a guide to tools available to you.

Full Text Article Access

Google Scholar

 

Google Scholar provides a simple way to search broadly for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research.

You may be able to access some of these through full text databases at your local library.

For example, In Wisconsin, Badgerlink provides access to many full-text databases through the EBSCO platform.

Check with your local librarian to see if you can get the article full text.

Also - through Google Scholar, you may find articles that are listed as being in the historical journal database JSTOR. In 2011, JSTOR released free access to all content in the database that is in the Public Domain. This means that any journal article published in the United States prior to 1923 and anything published in Europe prior to 1870, is available for you. Details are available here http://about.jstor.org/service/early-journal-content-0

 

If you find something that you want that is not available full text you can use WorldCat.org to find out if there is a copy near you or use the information to make an InterLibrary Loan request for it.

Open Access Journals

As a response to the prices many publishers are charging for access to their journals, there are groups now publishing scholarly journals available for free to the general public. This is called  'open access' and the the Directory of Open Access Journals is available here http://www.doaj.org/

This is a sample of the sorts of things you'll find there

Current Research in Jazz

  • Began in 2009, publishes once a year, peer-reviewed

Empirical Musicology Review

  • Began in 2006, published by the Ohio State University Library. Uses “Public Peer Review”

Ethnomusicology Review

  • UCLA, graduate student publication of UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology

Journal of Research in Music Performance

  • a peer-reviewed journal designed to provide presentation of a broad range of research that represents the breadth of an emerging field of study

Music & Politics

  • Peer-reviewed, first published 2007, published by MPublishing (Univeristy of Michigan Library)

Music Theory Online

  • Began 1993, published by the Society for Music Theory

Popular Musicology Online

  • Originally Popular Musicology Quarterly (In hardcopy), began 1991, “peer refereed”

Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy

  • Began 2001, published by GAMUT (Grieg Academy Music Therapy Research Centre, University of Bergen, in Norway)

 

Dissertations are another relatively easy source of scholarly research to access. One excellent source for information on music-related ones is

American Musicological Society (AMS) Dissertation database – looking up dissertations is free. This then provides the information needed to order them through your local library's InterLibrary Loan office or if you want to own your copy, buy them from Proquest for a fee.