Research Guides: SPAN 303: Expresiones Artísticas: Music

Researching Music in the UO Libraries

This page lists a variety of resources for listening to music and researching music scholarship, including streaming and physical audio collections, music-specific research databases, and encyclopedias and dictionaries for music research. Use these in combination with the resources on earlier pages of this guide. You can find my profile on the right side of this page; please contact me if you need any help with your research!

Audio Resources

Streaming Audio Databases

Music online: Contemporary world music This link opens in a new window
Streaming audio of music genres from every continent. Includes reggae, worldbeat, neo-traditional, world fusion, Balkanic jazz, African film, Bollywood, Arab swing, fado, flamenco, klezmer, zydeco, gospel, gagaku, and more
Music online: Popular music library This link opens in a new window
Popular music from around the world, including pop, country, Christian, electronic, hip-hop, metal, punk, new age, R&B, reggae, rock, soundtracks and many more.
Music online: Smithsonian global sound for libraries This link opens in a new window
Sound recordings offering music, speeches, and drama from more than 160 countries around the world.
Archives included in this database include the Aga Khan Trust for Culture- an archive of Islamic music and culture; the Archives and Research Center for Ethnomusicology-an Indian-based resource; the International Library of African Music- touted as the greatest depository of African music in the world; and recordings from the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and the Smithsonian Folkways Archive, including the complete recordings published by the Folkways label. Research into history, geography, literature, cultural diversity, and other subject areas can be expanded with the addition of the music and sounds represented in this collection.
Naxos Music LIbrary This link opens in a new window
Streaming audio access to large collection of CD-length recordings. Includes Classical, Jazz, World, Classic Rock, and Nostalgia music.
The online access includes program notes, cover artwork, tracklist, instrumentation and publisher information, libretti and synopses of more than 700 operas. Naxos Music Library features the complete catalogues or selected recordings of over 770 labels such as BIS, Capriccio, Chandos, CPO, CSO Resound, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Erato, Dynamic, Finlandia, Grand Piano, Hnssler Classic, Harmonia Mundi, Hungaroton, LSO Live, Marco Polo, Nave, Naxos, New York Philharmonic, Nimbus, Nonesuch, Ondine, Orfeo, PentaTone, RCA Records, Sony Classical, Teldec, Universal Classics, Vanguard Classics, Warner Classics, Warner Classics - Parlophone (former EMI Classics) and many more.

Finding Recordings in the Library

The UO Libraries Audio Collection is located inside the Douglass Room (LIB 364/365), on the third floor of Knight Library. Our collection includes approximately 25,000 vinyl LPs and about 18,000 CDs, as well as around 1,000 cassette tapes. You are welcome to check out recordings and take them home, but if you don't have a CD or record player at home, you can use the listening stations in the Douglass Room. Our record players have USB connectivity and are compatible with Audacity, so you can easily transfer audio from vinyl onto your computer. We also have external CD/DVD drives that you can borrow and connect to your computer.

The best way to search for audio materials in the Audio Collection is to use the Advanced Search option in LibrarySearch. This will allow you to limit the material type to "Audio", as well as to combine multiple search terms and limit by language or date range. Once you see your results, the facets on the left side of the screen will allow you to filter your desired audio formats.

Here is an example of an advanced search for audio materials by the Colombian singer Toto La Mompinosina in UO's Music Collection (click image to enlarge):

Here is an example of an advanced search of audio of Mexican protest songs in UO's Music Collection (click image to enlarge):

Music Scholarship Resources

Databases for Finding Articles About Music

Music Index This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive guide to music periodicals and literature featuring digitized content from 1970 to present. This database contains cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts of articles about music, musicians, and the music industry for more than 475 periodicals, as well as book reviews, obituaries, news, and selective coverage for more than 230 periodicals. .
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature (1967-present) This link opens in a new window
Bibliography of music literature providing broad international coverage of thousands of journals, books, dissertations, conference proceedings and Festscrhiften.
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Archival research resource containing the essential primary sources for studying the history of the film and entertainment industries, from the era of vaudeville and silent movies through to 2000.
Core US and UK trade magazines covering film, music, broadcasting and theater are all included, together with film fan magazines and music press titles. Magazines have been scanned cover-to-cover in high-resolution color, with granular indexing of all articles, covers, ads and reviews.

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new window
Provides access to Grove Music Online, Oxford Dictionary of Music, and Oxford Companion to Music. The authoritative resource for music research with over 52,000 articles written by nearly 9,000 scholars charting the diverse history and cultures of music around the globe.

The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music by Ruth M. Stone (Editor)
Call Number: MUSIC REF ML100 .G16 1998
Publication Date: 1997
The largest comprehensive encyclopedia of world music, spanning 10 volumes, each focused on a different continent or region.
Diccionario de la música española e hispanoamericana by director y coordinador general, Emilio Casares Rodicio ; directores adjuntos, José López-Calo, Ismael Fernández de la Cuesta ; secretaria técnica, María Luz González Peña
Call Number: MUSIC REF ML101.S7 D53 1999
Publication Date: 2002
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin (Editor)
Call Number: MUSIC REF ML102.P66 G84 2006
Publication Date: 2006
Authoritative 10-volume biographical encyclopedia of rock, pop, and jazz artists covers popular music from 1900 to 2006, including folk, blues, world music, rock, heavy metal, techno, reggae, and hip hop.

Ethnographic Music Research Databases

Ethnomusicology: global field recordings This link opens in a new window
This resource contains materials from cultural studies of music from across the globe. Produced in collaboration with the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive and the Ethnomusicology Archive at the University of Washington, the material in this collection includes thousands of audio field recordings and interviews, educational recordings, film footage, field notebooks, slides, correspondence and ephemera from over 60 fields of study.
EVIA Digital Archive (Ethnographic Video for Instruction and Analysis) This link opens in a new window
Unedited ethnographic field video representing a wide variety of geographic areas; religious, ethnic, and cultural groups; music and dance traditions; music performances, rehearsals, and other music events; and ethnographic interviews.
Ethnographic Video Online (Alexander Street Press) This link opens in a new window
Collection of classic and contemporary ethnographic documentaries.
Comprehensive resource for the study of human culture and behavior, covering every region of the world and features the work of many of the most influential documentary filmmakers of the 20th century, including interviews, previously unreleased raw footage, field notes, study guides, and more.