LibGuides: Music: Researching a Topic

Finding journal articles and music literature

Searching for an unknown item
Searching for a known journal article

Use abstract and indexing databases to carry out a general subject search. For music we specifically recommend RILM, RIPM, Music Index and Bibliographie des Musikschrifttums. Music is also covered in databases such as Periodicals Index online and Web of Science.

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature This link opens in a new window
Published by the Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale, RILM Abstracts of Music Literature is an international bibliography of scholarly writings on music and related disciplines in 202 languages, including original language titles; title translations in English; full bibliographic information; abstracts in English; author, journal, and subject indexes.
RIPM Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Accessed through the RIPM Retrospective Index, the Archive is the only extensive collection available online for music periodicals dating from the Early Romantic to the Modern Period. The Archive contains 114 rare journals selected by international specialists, offers an almost daily chronicle of musical activities, and immense possibilities for original research. RIPM Online Archive is a full-text version of journals indexed in RIPM Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals. It is updated with new titles every six months.
RIPM Jazz periodicals This link opens in a new window
Music Index This link opens in a new window
The Music Index Online provides citations to articles, book and record reviews, first performances, and obituaries from over 690 international music periodicals covering a wide range of historical, musicological, and ethnomusicological topics.
Bibliographie des Musikschriftums This link opens in a new window
BMS provides bibliographic data from 1950 to the present. It includes monographs, articles and reviews from journals, Festschriften, congress proceedings, yearbooks, anthologies and essays from critical reports. Main sources for the BMS editorial staff are national bibliographies, journals, monographs and subject bibliographies. Furthermore, contributions from journals with an interdiscplinary view on music are considered for inclusion.
Periodicals Index Online This link opens in a new window
An index to the contents of thousands of journals in the humanities and social sciences, from the 18th century to the present. When complete it is expected to contain records of approximately 23 million journal articles from 7,900 journals. Periodicals Index Online covers journals from North America, the United Kingdom and the rest of the English-speaking world and journals in other European languages including French, German, Italian and Spanish. Periodicals Index Online includes the complete table of contents for each issue of each journal. Bibliographic records are also included for the journals themselves and every journal is indexed under one or more of 37 subject headings eg: Economics, History, Law, Literature, Political Science and Religion.
Arts & Humanities Citation Index (incl. in Web of Science Core Collection) This link opens in a new window
Fully indexes over 1,700 arts and humanities journals, as well as selected items over 250 scientific and social sciences journals — from 1975 to present.

Search for the journal by title or explore via articles and journals.

Create and manage data
Expert advice from the UK Data Archive
Manage your data
Help from Cambridge's Research Data Management team
Data management
Up-to-date advice from MIT Libraries

Open Access Information from the Office of Scholarly Communications at Cambridge
Research Operations Office, Cambridge Guidance on applying for funding and managing grants

E-resources help

The Libguide for eresources and ejournals includes useful news and links as well as a contact and help section. Please also feel free to get in touch with your subject specialist librarian.

Finding notated music

Cambridge collections contain both manuscript and printed music. Not all are available on the online catalogues and you will find some useful tips here:

Where to find the card catalogues
Negotiating the music maze
This presentation provides tips for finding music resources within Cambridge. It is available on Moodle.

Looking further afield we strongly recommend exploring RISM, the worlds largest database of musical sources. Many Cambridge holdings are included.

RISM: International Inventory of Musical Sources after 1600 This link opens in a new window
The International Inventory of Musical Sources (RISM) is an international, non-profit joint venture which aims to comprehensively document the world's musical sources of manuscripts or printed music, works on music theory and libretti stored in libraries, archives, monasteries, schools and private collections.
Babelscores This link opens in a new window
Contemporary music online
RRIMO: Recent researches in music This link opens in a new window
Critical performing editions of music
Classical Scores Library (Volumes 1 to 5) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window

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Digital Sheet Music Library

List of online digital music document libraries
A non-exhaustive compilation of links to free online resources containing notated music
Digital resources for musicology
DRM provides links to open access resources for musicology, including many notated music resources
Contemporary Music Score Collection
Digital, open access scores from the Contemporary Score Edition series published by UCLA

Finding sound and video resources

When searching for sound and video recordings in iDiscover our advice is to either use advanced search and set material type to Audio Visual, or do a simple search and subsequently use (and lock) the filters.

In addition to our physical collections a range of online subscriptions is available. These can be found on A-Z eresources. Recommended resources include:

Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window
Naxos Music Library offers streaming of sound recordings for up to 5 simultaneous users. (Please remember to log out)
Medici TV This link opens in a new window
Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall This link opens in a new window
Live streams and recorded performances. Our subscriptions allows up to three simultaneous users.

Met Opera on Demand
Met Opera on Demand: student access for 5 simultaneous users
Operavision
Operavision offers selected live streams and on demand subtitled performances from participating European opera houses.

Bloomsbury Video Library (new platform for Artfilms) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Features content from filmed performances and fiction films to documentaries and instructional videos.
Box of Broadcasts (BoB) This link opens in a new window A film archive of over 2.2 million broadcasts

We can also recommend exploring the libguide for audiovisual materials.

Copyright Guidance

Foundation year: copyright and music

Resources for My Subject