Friday, March 28, 2008

New Resources for Music Research

If you are working on a research project, and are stuck, need some help, or just want to brush up on your research skills, the Music Library has two relatively new books in the reference collection for you! Laurie Sampsel's Music Research just arrived today, and we have had the seventh edition of Kate L. Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations for a few months now. See complete citations below:

This book is a very well annotated bibliography, divided into two parts: "Research Process and Research Tools," and "Writing, Style Manuals, and Citation." It has something for everyone, from advanced researchers to those new to academic music libraries. To get started, Sampsel's chapters on library catalogs (ch. 4), and periodical indexes (ch. 5), are excellent.

This is a major overhaul of Turabian's style manual. Much has been added since the publication of the sixth edition in 1996. For starters, this new edition contains an entire section of material on the research process. Authors Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams contributed this section, using material from their text on the research process, The Craft of Research, 2d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003). Also, the organization of the chapters on the way sources should be cited seems much more intuitive. The "notes-bibliography" and "parenthetical citations-reference list" styles are now addressed in separate chapters. And very importantly, there are many more examples of how electronic information should be cited!

I encourage anyone who is working on a music research project of any kind to consult Sampsel's book, and I also highly recommend Turabian's style manual, if you are not required to use another style (such as MLA or APA).

Friday, March 21, 2008

New acquitions feature work of NIU professors

On most Fridays during the academic year, the Music Library receives a delivery of new materials from the Cataloging Department at Founders Memorial Library. Today, we received two items with significant contributions from professors in the NIU School of Music. These are:




  1. Brown, A. Peter, with Brian Hart. The European Symphony from ca. 1800 to ca. 1930: Great Britain, Russia, and France. The Symphonic Repertoire, vol. 3, part B. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2008. Call no. MUX ML1255 .B87 2008. Brian Hart is Associate Professor of Music History in the School of Music.


  2. Bach, Jan. Music of Jan Bach. Jon Boen, horn; Stephen Duke, saxophone; Jean Berkenstock; flute; The Chicago Philharmonic, Larry Rachleff, conductor. Equilibrium EQ 79, 2006. Compact disc. Call no. MUB CDisc. M3.1.B145 M8 2006. Jan Bach is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus and Stephen Duke is Distinguished Research Professor in the School of Music.


Additionally of note, we received the 2007 volume of The Music Index (vol. 59). This is a critical resource for finding articles in music periodicals. It can be found on the index table next to the Music Library reference collection under call no. MUI M118 .M84 2007.

Monday, March 3, 2008

Getting Started

Through this blog, the Music Library staff will be able to share news with you about the NIU Music Library's collections and programs, as well as other important news in the music library world. If you would like to keep track of this blog with a feed, click on the "Posts (Atom)" link at the bottom of the blog page. If you prefer, you can subscribe to the same feed in RSS format by typing ?alt=rss at the end of the URL for the feed.