March 4, 2009

There are two new database trials for the month of March. If either of these are useful for your research, please leave a comment here or contact our electronic resources librarian.

The Music Index is the single most comprehensive subject-author guide to music periodical literature. Published by Information Coordinators, d/b/a Harmonie Park Press, the editor-librarians have surveyed data from more than 850 music periodicals from over 40 countries. The Music Index Online edition features over 1.4 million records. The searchable database is updated quarterly with about 100,000 new records added annually. In 2008, The Music Index Online coverage will span from 1973 to the present. Some backfile data from the period 1962-1972 is also included.

Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals (RIPM) is an international, highly annotated bibliography with detailed content analysis of writings on musical history and culture between 1800 and 1950–from Beethoven to Bartok, from Berlioz to Berg, and from Schubert to Shostakovich–all provided by internationally-recognized scholars and editors.

May 16, 2008

The library has added two new databases of music: African American Music and American Song.

African American Music covers jazz, blues, gospel, and other forms of African American musical expression. It brings 50,000 tracks of music to students, scholars, and patrons. The collection contains recordings by the top names in the history of black American music. Premier artists such as Ma Rainey, Lead Belly, Mahalia Jackson, Alberta Hunter, Tampa Red, and William “Bunk” Johnson are showcased. At least 5,000 of the tracks are rare or never-before-published, and the other 45,000 are in-copyright and included through arrangement with distinguished labels such as Document Records, Rounder Records, Delmark Records, and Nessa Records. Read more information about the collection.

American Song is a history database that will contain 50,000 tracks that allows people to hear and feel the music from America’s past. The database will include songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers, and cowboys. Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests, and more. This release includes 865 albums, equaling 14,632 tracks.

As always, if this database is useful for your research, please post comments here or contact the Electronic Resources Librarian.

October 11, 2007

The library has added a new database to the collection, the Database of Recorded American Music (DRAM).

The Database of Recorded American Music (DRAM) is a database of sound recordings that contains audio files of over 1200 CDs. DRAM includes 7500 compositions of classical music, folk music, opera, jazz, country music, early rhythm and blues, musical theater, experimental music, electronic music, early rock and Native American music from the United States.

Please try it out and let us know what you think!