New Feature Added to Our Online Bibliography

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We now provide links to public domain eBooks scanned in the Internet Archive, the BnF’s Gallica and Google Books. Currently about 85 titles are available. To view the entire list select The Online Bibliography tab above, then go to Simple Search and select “eBook” from the Publication Type drop down menu. We regret that many multi-volume editions are not yet complete in these online repositories. We will monitor them and update our links as additional volumes become available.

Please let us know if you are aware of reference works we have over looked.  We are constantly updating the database. We now cite more than 630 websites including 179 free eJournals. The total database now includes more than 6,000 additional print resources.

We have address the problem of websites becoming inactive by the addition of new Publication Type categories for Website (Defunct) and Website (Archived).

Comparing Periodical Indexes

In my music bibliography course at Brigham Young University we regularly review the major periodical indexes. I start by handing out a matrix that lists five major music periodical indexes across the top and along the left side lists about a dozen key points of comparison. For the midterm examination I regularly include the following essay question:

In an essay: compare and contrast the following music periodical indexes: RILM Abstracts, RIPM, IIMP, The Music Index, and the Bibliographie des Musikschrifttums. Describe the relative strengths and weaknesses for each in the following categories:

years of coverage
number of journals indexed
number of citations
retrospective indexing
access to full text online
quality and/or presence of abstracts
coverage of foreign language sources
coverage of non-periodical publication types
coverage of scholarly vs. non-scholarly publications
quality of online search interface
coverage of reviews
distinctive or unique contributions or strengths

Be specific and cite current statistics when appropriate. Be sure to take into consideration both print and online versions of each index where applicable.

This semester one of my students wrote an essay I think is worth sharing. Here is her unedited essay, writing without access to her personal notes. Good work Jamie!

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New Items in Reference Collection

Since July 2008, we have added over two hundred new reference items (both print and online) to the Online Bibliography from sources such as the Brigham Young and Cornell University library catalogs. Additions coming from the BYU catalogue have been primarily music collection catalogs and record label discographies. Here are two recently-added items worth mentioning: …

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Susan M. Filler’s Gustav and Alma Mahler: A Research and Information Guide (Routledge, 2008)

The second edition of Susan M. Filler’s Gustav and Alma Mahler: A Research and Information Guide (published by Routledge, 2008) intends to provide a representation of the current state of Mahler literature, which ranges from standard musicological publications by accepted scholars to novelty, nonprofessional explorations of Mahler’s symphonies via poetry. With her selection, Filler specifically hopes to interest literature specialists and also to show the wide range of literature available to all Mahler researchers regardless of nationality.

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Susan M. Filler’s Gustav and Alma Mahler: A Research and Information Guide (Routledge, 2008)Read More »

Welcome to the Music Bibliography & Reference Project

Welcome to the Music Bibliography & Reference Project. This site is intended to assist music librarians and music bibliographers to work together to create an extensive bibliography of music bibliographies and music reference sources.