The University Libraries now offer Oxford Bibliographies Online: Music

The Music Library now offers online access to Oxford Bibliographies Online: Music, funded by the University Libraries' Expensive Purchases Program. This is an online collection of bibliographies on many various musical topics. Entries in the bibliographies are annotated, and feature links to NIU resources via SFX, as well as built-in links to WorldCat and Google Books, when available. Under the direction of Editor in Chief Bruce Gustafson, the Editorial Board comprises musicologists of a variety of specialties. Users must access Oxford Bibliographies Online: Music from the NIU Campus network, or authenticate with their NIU network ID and password from off-campus.

One more reference book

The Music Library also received this bibliographic guide. It could be used as a text for graduate level music research courses.

Bayne, Pauline Shaw. A Guide to Library Research in Music. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008. Call no. MUR ML3797 .B29 2008.

New Reference Books

The following reference books recently arrived in the Music Library:

Cohen, Norm. American Folk Songs: A Regional Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008. 2 vols. Call no. MUR ML3551 .C55 2008.

Comeau, Gilles. Piano Pedagogy: A Research and Information Guide. Routledge Music Bibliographies, ed. Jennifer C. Post. New York: Routledge, 2009. Call no. MUR ML128.P3 C66 2009.

--This resource is a numbered, annotated bibliography.

Cook, Richard, and Brian Morton. The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings, 9th ed. London: Penguin Books, 2008. Call no. MUR ML156.4.J3 C68 2008.

--A selected, annotated discography, this book is arranged alphabetically and consists of 1646 pages.

DeVito, Chris, Yasuhiro Fujioka, Wolf Schmaler, and David Wild. The John Coltrane Reference. Edited by Lewis Porter. New York: Routledge, 2008. Call no. MUR ML156.7.C58 J64 2008.

--Consisting of a chronology and discography, this book provides a quick reference to the details of Coltrane's career.

Draayer, Suzanne Rhodes. Art Song Composers of Spain: An Encyclopedia. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009. Call no. MUR ML106.S7 D73 2009.

Fishman, Stephen. The Public Domain: How to Find & Use Copyright-Free Writings, Music, Art & More, 4th ed. Berkeley, CA: Nolo, 2008. Call no. MUR KF3022 .F575 2008.

Timner, W. E. Ellingtonia: The Recorded Music of Duke Ellington and His Sidmen, 5th ed. Studies in Jazz, no. 54, ed. Dan Morgenstern and Edward Berger. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007. Call no. MUR ML156.5.E45 T5 2007.

New Reference Tool for Orchestral Pops Music

The Music Library recently received Orchestral "Pops" Music: A Handbook, by Lucy Manning (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009). It uses the same format as the familiar orchestral music resource, Orchestral Music: A Handbook, 4th ed., by David Daniels. Works are listed in alphabetical order by composer. Five appendixes index the contents by "instrumentation," "duration," "themes," "title," and "publishers and sources," respectively. This resource can be found in the Music Library reference collection under call no. MUR ML128.O5 M36 2009.

New Reference Titles

Here are some new reference titles from a recent delivery:

Gottlieb, Jane. Music Library and Research Skills. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009. Call no. MUR ML3797 .G68 2009.

This is a guide to music library research, and as such it might be useful to both faculty and students, particularly students involved in one of the music research courses in the School of Music.

Kuss, Malena, ed. Music in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Encyclopedic History. Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, 2004 (vol. 1), and 2007
(vol. 2). Call no. MUR ML199 .M858 2004.

These volumes are the first two in a set.

New acquisitions

Students and scholars of Baroque music, here is some good news! The Music Library has acquired volumes 3-7 of the Instrumental Works of Marin Marais, edited by John Hsu (New York: The Broude Trust, 1996-2002). The Music Library previously held the first two volumes only. These are shelved under call no. MUS M3.1 .M375. This will be an important addition to our collection of scholarly editions of Baroque music.

Researchers of the music and lives of Gustav and Alma Mahler will be pleased to learn of the addition of the second edition of Susan M. Filler's Gustav and Alma Mahler: A Research and Information Guide (New York: Routledge, 2008) to the Music Library reference collection. It is shelved under call no. MUR ML134.M34 F54 2008

For those who would like insight into the life of Sergey Prokofiev, we have an excellent new resource: Sergey Prokofiev Diaries, 1915-1923: Behind the Mask, translated and annotated by Anthony Phillips (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2008). These years chronicle a period of extensive travel in the composer's life, including an extended period in the United States. The book can be found under call no. MUX ML410.P865 A3 2008.

Finally, I couldn't resist mentioning the acquisition of The Ethnomusicologists' Cookbook: Complete Meals from Around the World, by Sean Williams (New York: Routledge, 2006). It is not too often that a music library gets to collect cookbooks, so this is a real treat! The collections of recipes come with "recommended listening" lists and reading lists "for further information." What fun! Look for this under MUX ML3799 .E785 2006.

New Reference Books

The Music Library received three new reference books for its collection on Friday, April 11.

They are:

• Benitez, Vincent P. Olivier Messiaen: A Research and Information Guide. Routledge Music Bibliographies. New York: Routledge, 2008. Call no.: MUR ML134.M54 B46 2008.
• Ford, Robert. A Blues Bibliography, 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2007. Call no.: MUR ML128.B49 F67 2007.
• Everett, William A., and Paul R. Laird. Historical Dictionary of the Broadway Musical. Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts, ed. Jon Woronoff, no. 22. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2008. Call no. MUR ML102.M88 E94 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:

• Sampsel, Laurie J. Music Research: A Handbook. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Call no. MUR ML113 .S28 2009.

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.

• Turabian, Kate L. A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers, 7th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Call no. MUR LB2369 .T8 2007.

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).