This guide was prepared to assist students performing research on topics in art, music, theatre, related performing arts. It suggests resources available, but it is only a representative sample -- it is by no means a comprehensive list of all that's available, either in the library or on the Internet.
You can use the Online Library Catalog to search for books, videos and DVDs, CD-ROMs, and other materials that are located in Davis Memorial Library. Use the keyword search to locate materials on a particular topic. Type the concepts you are looking for connected with the word "and". For example, if you are looking at the musical contributions of African Americans, you could enter "African American?" and music. The quotation marks make the computer keep those search terms together, and the question mark searches for variations of the word (in this case, singular and plural). If you receive an error message such as
Try your search again using different words, connectors, or quotation marks.
make sure that you have quotes around phrases and connectors ("and" or "or") between your search terms. If you still don't get the results you want, stop by the reference desk or give us a call at 630-7123.
If you would like to find out what journals Davis Memorial Library owns in hard copy, a list of print titles arranged by subject is available. Browsing through print versions of journals can give you a good overview of major issues in a particular field and ideas for research paper topics.
If you are looking for journal articles on a specific topic, use the journal article databases available on the library's Electronic Resources page. Many articles are available in full-text versions, but some offer only citations. If you find an article that is citation-only, you can use the Journal Finder link to determine whether the complete article is available in a different database. Always write down or print out the full citation to an article (author, article title, journal title, volume, issue, date, and page numbers) that you are looking for or that you have cited in a paper.
Search hint: When searching for journal articles on a particular topic, conduct a more specific search than you would for books. For example, instead of searching for African American* and music, search for narrower topics such as these:
Academic Search Premier
Academic Search Premier covers a wide variety of disciplines, and contains a
cross section of scholarly journals, popular magazines, and newspapers. The
database indexes over 8,200 publications, with full text for nearly 4,650 of
those titles.
Project MUSE
Project Muse provides full-text access to journals in the humanities, arts,
and social sciences journals from scholarly publishers. Articles in this database
are often complex and written in an academic style. Titles of interest include
Leonardo, Asian Theatre Journal, Camera Obscura, Cinema Journal, Discourse,
Modern Drama, PAJ (A Journal of Performance and Art), TDR (The Drama Review),
Theatre, Theatre Journal, Theatre Topics, and the University of Toronto Quarterly.
Search hints: If your search results are off-target, try changing the default on the search screen from "All Fields (w/text)" to "All Fields except text". Note than using the search box that appears on the results page only searches within the existing results. Go back to the main search page to start a new search.
CAMIO (Catalog of Art
Museum Images Online)
CAMIO offers high-quality art images from museums and collections around the
world. Users can search by keyword, title, creator, date, owner, subject, format,
and culture or nationality. These images can be downloaded for use in papers
and presentations.
Search hint: To search for items by title, creator, or other criteria, click the "Browse all" button and fill in or click the applicable fields.
JSTOR
Unlike many larger databases which specialize in recent publications, JSTOR is a backfile. Titles of interest in the performing arts (with beginning dates in parentheses) are Art Education (1948), Studies in Art Education (1959), Journal of Research in Music Education (1953), Music Educators Journal (1934), Music Supervisors' Journal (1915-1934), and Music Supervisors' Bulletin (1914-1915).
NetLibrary provides access to over 25,000 ebooks and audiobooks on a variety of subjects. Users can check out these ebooks for two hours and read these items online or download them onto their own computers. These online books include searchable text and printable pages (though the whole document cannot be printed).
Davis Memorial Library electronic databases are accessible via networked computers on campus as well as from off-campus. Please contact the library circulation desk (630-7645) for directions on obtaining a password to access the databases remotely (off-campus).
Reference materials can help you develop possible
topics, begin your research, and find critical pieces of information to finish
your project. Try some of the following titles for information:
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ART
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Yale Dictionary
of Art and Artists
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Up-to-date guide
on Western art from 1300 to the present
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R 703 L284 2000
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Art dictionaries
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A variety of dictionaries
covering various styles and periods
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R 703
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1000 Symbols
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A pictorial guide
to common symbols and their meanings
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R 704.946 S548o
2002
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Art Across
America : A Comprehensive Guide to American Art Museums and Exhibition
Galleries
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A directory of
museums and galleries, arranged by state and city
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R 708.13 A784
2000
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Materials "&"
Techniques in the Decorative Arts
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Short dictionary
entries for a wide variety of techniques and periods
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R 745.028 M425
2000
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Photospeak:
a Guide to the Ideas, Movements, and Techniques of Photography, 1839 to
the Present
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Dictionary format
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R 770 M827p
1998
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MUSIC
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New Grove Dictionary
of Music and Musicians
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20 volumes, emphasizing
classical and Western traditions
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R 780.3 N532
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Oxford Companion
to Music
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Primarily short
entries on musical terms and composers
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R 780.321 O98
2002
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New Oxford
History of Music
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11 volumes, arranged
chronologically
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R 780.9 N532
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World Music:
the Rough Guide
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2 volumes, mostly
discography (recordings), but contains extensive background information
on non-Western musical traditions
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R 780.9 W927 1999
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Guinness Encyclopedia
of Popular Music
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6 volumes, short
to medium length entries on music personalities and styles of the 20th
century
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R 781.6403 G964
1992
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New Grove Dictionary
of Opera
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4 volumes, primarily
short entries
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R 782.103 N532
2001
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Song Sheets
to Software
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Print music, software,
and web sites for musicians
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R 780.26 A969s
2004
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THEATRE
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Oxford History
of World Cinema
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Essay-length entries
on various styles
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R 791.4309 O98
1996
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Oxford Companion
to the Theatre
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Dictionary format
with short entries
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R 792.03 H333o4
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World Encyclopedia
of Contemporary Theatre
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Essay length entries,
arranged by country (We have Africa, Arab World, and Asia/Pacific)
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R 792.03 W 927
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Who's Who in
Contemporary World Theatre
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Dictionary format
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R 792.0922 W628
2000
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ArtLex - Definitions of more than 3,300 terms, thousands of images, pronunciation notes, quotations, and links to other resources on the Web.
National Gallery of Art - Over 5,600 items from the museum's collection have online images.
Metropolitan Museum of Art - Over 6,500 items from the museum's collection have online images. Of particular interest is an interactive art history timeline.
Mother of All Art and Art History Links - Whether it's the "mother of all" is debatable, but the number of links is impressive, including Art History Departments, Research Resources, Resources for Visual Collections, Image Collections and Online Art, Online Exhibits, Fine Art Schools and Departments, Art Museums, and Textual and Linguistic Resources.
Art on the Web - Another extensive catalog of web pages, claiming to have over 1200 links.
Artnet.com - Buy, sell and research fine art online. Lists over 1,300 galleries, 36,000 works and 13,000 artists from around the globe. Provides a survey of the market and its pricing trends, Artnet Magazine, and the Fine Art Auctions Database.
d'Art - A listing service, a web directory, and artist research forums.
Art in Context - directory of museums, galleries and dealers, artists, and exhibitions, with linked images.
Art Cyclopedia - A comprehensive index of artists and works represented at over 800 art sites on the Internet; searchable by name, medium, nationality, or movement.
Art on the Net - "A virtual space where artists join together in sharing their art with others on the Internet."
Visualizing Cultures - Extensive list of links to online digital image archives, including the Library of Congress American Memory Project, baseball cards, Wright Brothers negatives, and many more.
Music
All Music Guide - A hyperlinked dictionary of composers and musicians, and more. The main page searches for pop/rock, jazz, country, and world music. Search by artist name and see a detailed biography and discography. Search by song title, and see a review of the album, a track listing, similar albums, and credits. Search by style, and see a brief history of the genre with essential recordings and artists. Classical music has a separate page with similar information.
Classical Net - Features a basic repertoire list, classical CD buying guide, recommended classical CDs, composer's works and data, reviews and articles, books and scores, and classical music links.
Essentials of Music - A basic overview of the history of Western art music ("classical music") focusing on eras, composers, and definitions. Includes musical sound clips.
Classical Music Navigator - This site is a "service facilitating the identification and linking of composers and their works, styles, and influences," according to the creator's home page. The site provides basic information for over 400 composers, with cross-indexing to link related styles and composers' influences. Includes links to sound clips.
Classical Music Pages - Contains history, biographical information about composers (with portraits and short sound examples), explanations of the various musical forms and a dictionary of musical terms.
Center for the History of Music Theory and Literature - The emphasis here is on specialized databases, such as Latin and Italian musical texts, doctoral dissertations in music theory, and musical borrowing.
Sheet music - Many online sites offer sheet music that can be downloaded, printed, or sent via snail mail. Some sites have a yearly subscription fee (8 Notes), while others are pay-per-print (Sibelius or SheetMusicPlus). Most sites have some pieces available for free download.
Theatre History on the Web - Billed as "A Resource for Theatre Historians and Students of the Theatre's History", this site contains links for area studies, culture studies, and centers/museums/libraries.
Brief Guide to Internet Resources in Theatre and Performance Studies - Maintained by Dr. Ken McCoy of Stetson University, this guide focuses on quality rather than quantity. Lists general theatre web sites, sites on Actors and Acting, Stagecraft and Technical Theatre, Plays and Playwrights, Shakespeare, Arts Management and Non-Profit Arts Organizations Of Regional Interest, The Best of the Rest, and resources for Finding Primary Materials .
WWW Virtual Library for Theatre and Drama - Has links for Academic/training institutions worldwide, Book dealers, Conferences for theatre scholars, Electronic text archives and plays online, General organizations and resources, Journals online, Mailing lists, Monologues in print, News groups, Plays in print, Scholarly books, Theatre books, Theatre companies worldwide, Theatre image collections online, Theatre studies, articles and resources, Theatre syllabus bank, and Theatre on Film.
Glossary of Technical Theatre Terms - An extensive dictionary of theatre terms, with diagrams where appropriate.
American Theater Web - News and events concerning contemporary American theatre.
Playbill Online - Heavy on Broadway information, of course, but also has links to theatre listings and theatre news in other parts of the U.S. and the world.