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Dissertations on Music
Table of Contents
What is a Dissertation?
Dissertations are book-length studies (often original research with
extensive bibliographies) that doctoral students write as part of their
degree requirements. Usually the degree-granting institution keeps a
copy of the dissertation. These copies are often available for loan
or purchase.
- For information about the future of online dissertations, see Yale
Fineman's article, "Electronic Theses and Dissertations in Music" in Notes 60, no. 4 (June 2004): 893-907. Full text is available
in Project
Muse to the UConn community. [link
to article]
- For an article comparing online dissertation tools, see Andrew
Toulas's article, "Dissertation Databases on the Web,"Notes 63,
no. 1 (September 2006): 159-163. Full text is available
in Project
Muse to the UConn community. [link
to article]
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How to Get a Dissertation
Step 1. Use the databases, Web sites, and print resources below
to identify citations to dissertations.
Quick Guide (see detailed descriptions further
below)
| RILM |
1967-present; many countries; includes abstracts. |
| ProQuest
Dissertations |
1861-present; U.S. only; abstracts 1980-present (older
abs are in print volumes in Babbidge Library). Includes full text
of some dissertations. |
| Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology (Web) |
Limited scope, but includes non-U.S. and pre-1969 dissertations.
No abstracts. |
Step 2. After you have a citation, use one of these options to
procure a copy:
Option 1. See if ProQuest
Dissertations has the dissertation in downloadable full text.
Option 2. Search HOMER
to see if UConn owns the dissertation. (Search it as you would a book.)
You can also check the Boston Library Consortium's Virtual
Catalog (if so, the catalog has a request button).
Option 4. Order your own copy at Online
Dissertation Services (ProQuest, formerly UMI) or ProQuest
Dissertations.
Option 5. If you think the library should own the dissertation,
speak with the music
librarian. Use DD/ILL in the meantime.
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UConn's Dissertations
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Databases Listing Dissertations
See also "Database Shortcuts" on the navigation
bar to the left.
- ProQuest
Dissertations (same
as Dissertation
Abstracts) -- Includes citations to two million
dissertations (including about 28,000 music dissertations)
from accredited U.S institutions since 1861. Selectively
covers masters theses, Canadian dissertations, and European
dissertations. Has abstracts for dissertations beginning
July 1980 and masters theses beginning spring 1988. (This
means that for pre-1980 dissertations, there are fewer
keywords available for searching; it may be harder to
find a dissertation if the title is not descriptive.)
To read abstracts for pre-1980 dissertations, note the
DA number and year, then go to the print version of Dissertation
Abstracts at Z 5055.U5 A53 Babbidge Stacks. This subscription
database is updated monthly and has a robust
search engine.
PROQUEST'S FULL TEXT DISSERTATIONS ONLINE:
NOTE: when you search ProQuest
Dissertations, you are searching ONLY the citations, subject descriptors,
and abstracts (if included). You are NOT searching the full text
of dissertations.
UConn dissertations: ProQuest includes descriptions back
to 1965, and provides the full text for most UConn dissertations
completed after 1996. Occasionally, ProQuest has full text for
pre-1997 UConn dissertations if someone somewhere (generally overseas)
asked that the dissertation be scanned. UConn has not signed up
for the "Retro
Project" in which ProQuest scans dissertations prior to
1997.
Other dissertations: ProQuest has more than 600,000 dissertations
available for immediate download by members of the UConn community.
Some of these go rather far back in time. If you do not find the
dissertation online, see how to get a dissertation (step
2).
-
Music Index.
Includes citations from Dissertation Abstracts (Music Index considers
DA to be a musicology journal). The Music Index may be useful
for finding applied topics that might not appear in RILM. It is
also useful for "one-stop shopping," at least from 1977 ff.
Still, because dissertation titles are very descriptive, and MI's
subject headings seem to be drawn from the titles, there may not
be a great advantage to using MI over DA. TIP: If you find dissertation
citations in the Music Index, search them again in DA to
try to find the full text and/or abstract, or to get the DA
number for some interlibrary loan requests. Note: the print volumes
of Music Index (going back to 1949) also include dissertation citations.
Use DA or another dissertation source for dissertations written
before 1949.
-
New
Grove Online or in print. The bibliographies at the
end of each article contain citations to dissertations.
-
RILM
Includes citations and abstracts to scholarly
music dissertations back to 1967. See Dissertation
Abstracts Notes (PDF) for comparison between RILM and
Dissertation Abstracts.
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Dissertation Web Sites
Dissertation
Abstracts omits a good number of non-U.S. dissertations,
so consult the following resources if you need a more international
view of scholarship in your research area.
Archive
of Dissertation Abstracts in Music (ADAM) (maintained by
Geoffrey Chew). Indexes and abstracts 186 dissertations (complete
or in process). Half are from Europe and other worldwide locations.
This resource may be handy if the desired dissertation is not
in Dissertation
Abstracts and is not
abstracted in DDM below.
Center for Research
Libraries's (CRL) Quick Search Page. The CRL collects
non-U.S. dissertations. Look for "foreign" dissertations in
CRL's catalog and in its now defunct foreign dissertations
database. As a member of CRL, UConn can borrow dissertations
for its faculty, students, and staff.
DDM:
Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology Online (Indiana).
Good for identifying over 13,000 music dissertations from institutions
outside the U.S. (which Dissertation
Abstracts often excludes), plus those written before
1969 (pre-RILM). Also
includes some "in-process" dissertations. Does not
have abstracts, and has only very basic search tools (Dissertation
Abstracts and RILM are
better), but allows user to browse by musical period.
DMS (Dissertationsmeldestelle
der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung). Musicology dissertations
submitted in Austria, Switzerland and the German Federal Republic,
with occasional entries from other European countries, and including
doctoral dissertations in music education since 1998.
Doctoral Dissertations in Music Theory, see MTO Dissertations Index
below.
EDT Digital Library (Networked
Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)) provides access
to electronic full text of hundreds of theses and dissertations from
over eighty universities/libraries worldwide.
Foreign
Doctoral Dissertations -- The Center for Research Libraries (of
which UConn is a member) holds 750,000 foreign doctoral dissertations;
many remain uncataloged, so contact CRL via this link for further
inquiries.
Index to Theses in Great Britain
and Ireland. Titles and abstracts; site registration necessary
for access, but a limited free demo is available.
MTO
Dissertations Index. Announcements that have appeared
in Music
Theory Online (Society for Music Theory) of approximately
260 completed dissertations dealing with music theory (mostly
1991 or later), including many non-U.S. dissertations that
do not appear in Dissertation
Abstracts.
Includes
abstracts and occasional tables of contents. List is sortable;
otherwise, there is no search engine; the Google search
includes the entire MTO site. Keywords are not standardized.
Other Resources Listing Music
Dissertations
Print and electronic reference resources often list dissertations
that predate the databases above. They may also have evaluative comments
and context not found in the databases. Here are starting points:
-
Bibliographies on your topic. Consult print
subject bibliographies on composers, styles, instruments, etc. These
have citations to dissertations. To find bibliographies, do a HOMER
Subject Heading search on your composer/topic and look for the subheading
"Bibliographies." Also try a Keyword Boolean search on the
words dissertations and [keyword] and [keyword], e.g., dissertations
and music and education.
-
General music bibliographies. Consult bibliographies
of music dissertations, such as Rita Mead's Doctoral Dissertations
in American Music: A Classified Bibliography (1978). To find them,
do an Advanced Search in HOMER (type music dissertations, then
select Subject Keywords in the "Search In" menu).
- Duckles. The index in Duckles's Music Reference and Research
Materials: An Annotated Bibliography (ML 113 D83 1997 Music Ref.)
lists several print resources that can help you identify dissertations.
- Bibliographies in books and articles. These
often contain citations to dissertations. Don't forget that JSTOR allows
you to search the full text of articles, including their bibliographies
(these often contain citations to dissertations).
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This page was found at http://www.lib.uconn.edu/music/dissertations.html.
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