Music Library

Frequently-Used Reference Sources

• Grove Music Online is the standard English-language encyclopedia on Western art music and musicians. Includes access to Oxford Dictionary of Music and Oxford Companion to Music.
• Classical Music Reference Library provides access to a number of reference sources, including Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians and Baker’s Student Encyclopedia of Music.
• Garland Encyclopedia of World Music online version of all ten volumes of this important work devoted to music research of all the world’s peoples.
• Encyclopedia of Music in Canada is a scholarly resource on Canadian Music (available in both English and French).
• IPA Source provides transcriptions and literal translations of opera arias and art song texts using the International Phonetic Alphabet.
• Index to Printed Music helps users find scores published in standard scholarly editions. This resource updates Anna Harriet Heyer’s Index to Historical Sets, Collected Editions and Monuments of Music.

Need help? Try the Music Research Guide for more research tools, or ask the Music Library staff.

Journal Articles

Looking for a specific journal title? Use the Print and Electronic Journals Search.

Looking for information about a specific topic? Use these indexes to search for journal articles, news, reviews, and more.

• RILM Abstracts of Music Literature is a comprehensive music bibliography of scholarly writings covering traditional, popular and classical music. Topics include musicology, ethnomusicology, pedagogy, psychology, anthropology, sociology and other related disciplines.
• Music Index provides access to both scholarly and non-scholarly literature and periodicals on music, musicians, and the music industry.
• International Index to Music Periodicals, Full Text indexes articles about all aspects of music, including music education, performance, ethnomusicology, musical theatre, theory, popular music forms and composition. Includes some full text.
• Canadian Music Periodical Index is an index of articles published in Canadian music periodicals that focus on various aspects of musical activity in Canada. Entries are from Canadian journals, newsletters and magazines dating from the late 19^th century to present day.
• RIPM: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals 1800-1950 indexes 19th and early 20th-century periodical literature dealing with music.

Need help? Contact the Music Library Reference Desk.

Audio Resources

• Naxos Music Library contains 700,000+ tracks emphasizing classical recordings produced by Naxos and Marco Polo. Other labels representing jazz, world music, and pop/rock are also included.
• Classical Music Library includes 60,000+ tracks, covering music from the earliest times (e.g. Gregorian Chant) to the present.
• CentreStreams holds recordings by Canadian composers, compiled by the Canadian Music Centre.
• D R A M preserves and disseminates important recordings neglected by the commercial marketplace. Contains music of various genres, produced by New World Records and other independent labels.
• Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries contains recordings owned by Smithsonian Folkways, archival collections from various legendary labels, and music recorded in Africa and South Asia.

Video Resources

• Opera in Video contains important opera performances, captured on video through staged productions, interviews, and documentaries.
• Ethnographic Video Online contains raw footage and documentaries focused on the study of human culture and behavior and will be of interest to ethnomusicology researchers.
• Films on Demand contains music appreciation, music history and world music.

*Need to create a playlist? See this guide on how to create playlists.

Digital Scores

These databases contain collections of digital scores that can be viewed online and printed.

• LibraryMusicSource contains an extensive collection of Western Classical sheet music, including both scores and parts.
• Classical Scores Library includes classical music scores, manuscripts, and some previously unpublished material. Users can access full scores, study scores, piano and vocal scores, and piano reductions.
• Petrucci Music Library – International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) is a virtual library containing public domain music, as well as music from composers who are willing to share their work free of charge.
• British Columbia Sheet Music is a digital repository of sheet music about British Columbia. Most of the music is written for medium voice and piano, although there is also sheet music for piano, chorus, guitar and even the ukulele.

For more digital score collections, see the Music Research Guide.