Music/Drama Library

  Home | Site Index | HOMER

Legend

= restricted to UConn community. Click icon for more information.

These pages display best in Internet Explorer. Fully expand page for best results.

Bibliographies

When you are doing research, don't just search the databases. Also consult bibliographies on your topic. "Bibliography" can mean two things: (1) the list of references at the end of a book or article or (2) a publication (often book length) that lists books, articles, and other works on a particular topic.

Advantages:
An expert in the field has already done the research and (ideally) identified the better or more relevant material. The bibliographer often describes resources, indicates the quality of research, and establishes the authors' authority. Bibliographies often treat a topic with more depth than databases, fill in background information, find older but critical research, and help you identify major scholars in the field. (Databases do not lend the personal touch of an expert in the field, and often do not cover older material.)

Disadvantages:
Bibliographies are out of date the moment they are printed. A ten-year-old bibliography may have very useful information, but you will need to find a way to identify more recent research. Also, bibliographies do not offer the same convenience of searching as databases.

How to Use a Bibliography

To use a bibliography, you find a book on your topic (several are listed below), flip to the bibliographies at the end of the book or chapter, and identify citations relevant to your topic. Here's a little help on how to read citations. When you've selected your citation(s), go to Getting Your Hands on the Article.

Bibliographies to try (these were selected for a course on Beethoven):

Diamond, Harold. Music Analyses: An Annotated Guide to the Literature. New York: Schirmer Books, 1991. ML128.A7 D5 1991 Music Lib Ref

Kinderman, William. Beethoven. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. ML410.B4 K56 1995 Music Library (may be on reserve).

Solomon, Maynard. Beethoven. 2nd, rev. ed. New York: Schirmer Books, 1998. ML410.B4 S64 1998 Music Library (may be on reserve).

Stanley, Glenn, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Beethoven. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ML410.B4 C24 2000 Music Library (may be on reserve).

To find book-length bibliographies, do a Subject Heading search on "beethoven" (or whatever topic), then look for "beethoven--bibliography" in the resulting list.

Also consult specialized dictionaries containing works lists and bibliographies. Example:

New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, 2nd edn. Standard and largest comprehensive music encyclopedia in English. Includes full-text articles on musical terminology, history, theory, practice, people (e.g., composers, performers, printers, librettists, scholars, etc.), styles, places, etc. Includes works lists, bibliographies, visual examples, and sound clips. Second edition published December 2000; 29-volume print equivalent available at ML100 .N48 2001 Music Ref.

[top]

This page was found at http://www.lib.uconn.edu/music/bibliographies.html.