For articles on music and musicianship, check our list of electronic journals (full text and citations).

 
If we do not subscribe to the journal you’re looking for, use ILLiad to request the article.

For more information on ILLiad, and to set up your account, click here. Once your account is set up, you can automatically populate the article request form from EBSCO databases – just click on the button. From other databases, or from citations you find in printed sources, type in the information.

Naxos Music Library provides access to over 80,000 tracks (5,500 CDs) from the entire Naxos, Marco Polo and Da Capo catalogues, plus other licensed independent labels.

Additionally, our library has quite an extensive collection of music CDs. They can be searched just as you would a book: composer’s name, title of piece, or instrumentation (example: Bartok; Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste; Orchestral music). Once you’ve done your search, set the Limit function to Music CDs. CDs are kept behind the Reserve Desk, and the call numbers are sequential numbers with the prefix CD. They may be listened to in-house only, so bring your earphones.

If you know the title of a score, like Histoire du Soldat, or the composer's name (Stravinsky, Igor), try searching those in our catalog Felix or ConnectNY. Or if you want piano music for practicing, type that in a subject search. If you want piano music only by Debussy, limit the search to Words in the Author. And if you want to limit only to CDs for listening, you can limit further by Material type (choose Music CD).

If you're looking to see what we have in a particular subject area, say Conducting technique, choose either a Keyword or an Advanced Keyword search. Key in one or two search terms that describe what you're looking for. As you look down the resulting list of titles, choose one that looks like it is about the subject you're researching.

As you look at the record that describes the book you picked, scroll down until you come to the subject headings assigned to that book. Every book (except some works of fiction) is assigned one or more subject headings in a controlled vocabulary developed by the Library of Congress. Each of these headings is a link. If you click on the subject heading that best describes your research, you'll get a list of all the subject headings used in our catalog that alphabetically surround the one you clicked on. The one you chose will be in the middle of this list. You can either click on that subject heading, or you can take a look at similar subjects. Whatever you decide to click on, you'll get a list of the titles of the books that have been described by that particular subject heading. Click on the title that you want to get the information that you need (location, call number, status) to find the book in the library.

Note any appropriate subject headings, they can be used for searches in other databases, like WorldCat and Project MUSE.

When you find a book in the catalog that you want to see, make note of its location. Books whose locations include the word Bard are here in the main library, Stevenson. We share our catalog with the Center for Curatorial Studies Library which is open to Bard students, but does not lend its books, and the library at the Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture. To use the Bard Graduate Center’s library, which is located in New York City, please contact the Reader Services Librarian at (212) 501-3035 or reference@bgc.bard.edu.

 
If a book is not available in our library, or if the subject you’re researching is not adequately covered by the holdings in our library, the next place to look is in the ConnectNY catalog.

Search ConnectNY as you would our catalog. When you find a book you want: make sure the status is “Available” then click “Request this Item” choose Bard from the drop down box then key in your last name and barcode number.

The book will be delivered in two to six business days and may be picked up from  Reserves Desk on the third floor of Stevenson. You’ll be notified by e-mail. The borrowing period for these books is three weeks with one three week renewal. ConnectNY books should be returned to the Reserves Desk.

 
If a book is not in our catalog or in ConnectNY, you may request it through ILLiad, our InterLibrary Loan service.

The database that serves ILLiad is called WorldCat . WorldCat is a catalog of thousands of library catalogs, including all the major research libraries. Repeat the searches you performed in our catalog and ConnectNY. If you find a book you want to read, use our ILLiad system to request it. For more information on ILLiad, and to set up your account, click here. Once your account is set up, you can automatically populate the book request form from WorldCat – just click on the button.

The Reference Collection of the library contains encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks pertaining to particular subject areas, sometimes very particular subject areas. This section is organized by call numbers that mirror the call numbers in the general collection, so if you have a book in hand about a particular subject, you can go the section of the Reference Collection with a similar call number and see consult the reference works on that subject.

The Reference Collection starts on the shelves by the Rugby Field on the first floor of Stevenson and continues into Kellogg.

In our Reference section on Music, call numbers ranging from ML12 to MT 825 include great sets like Garland’s Encyclopedia of World Music, New Grove's Dictionary of Music & Musicians, Grove’s Dictionary of Opera, Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Oxford and Cambridge Histories, Nicolas Slonimsky’s oeuvre, and other biographical compendiums of musicians, conductors, vocalists, etc.

The Library of Congress call numbers for Musical Scores start with M. In the general, circulating collection, these scores are located in several areas on the 3rd floor of Stevenson:

M1-M22	Anthologies through solo piano pieces, shelved outside the Reserves office, Rm.303
M22-M263	Solo piano works through duos of various instruments, located outside the ILL/ConnectNY office, Rm.304
M263-M1001	Duos of various instruments through the beginning of symphonic works, found outside Rm. 305
M1001 – M5106	The rest of the symphonic repertoire through vocal works, are kept inside room 305, and this room also includes the Study Scores for the complete works of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Handel, Haydn, Janacek, Josquin de Pres, Mozart, Obrecht, Palestrina, Schein, Shubert, and Schutz.  These scores are for research and do not leave the library.

The call numbers for scores represent the instrumental makeup of the work. Thus the 400s will contain quartets of various combinations of instruments, while the 1000s begin orchestral pieces. Vocal music begins in the 1500s, with 1503 being opera in full score. However, this scheme does not allow for all of a particular composer’s works to appear together in one section. So Beethoven’s quartets for strings will be around M 452, while his symphonies will be in M 1001.

Books on Music Literature, including biographies, history and forms of music begin with ML, and are shelved on the 3rd floor Kellogg. Books on Music Theory begin with MT and are shelved directly following the ML section.

In addition to our online databases, a visit to Yale’s Irving S. Gilmore Library website offers access to their ongoing and changing music history exhibitions, including image galleries.

Harvard’s music library has a great collection of online resources for music scholars, many of which are open use.

New York Times From 1851 to 3 Years Ago is a great source for reviews and articles. It’s helpful to choose the document type when searching. If you’re looking for an obituary or review, try that document type, but if you can’t find anything, try “article”. For newspaper articles after 1985 for cities other than New York, try LexisNexis Academic.

For older newspaper and magazine articles, our collection of the index The Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature extends back to the 1890s. It’s located on first floor of Stevenson, on the shelves closest to the rugby field. C19: The Nineteenth Century Index indexes newspapers and magazines from the 19th century.

NoodleBib is an excellent online utility for both generating a Chicago Style bibliography and footnotes and for organizing your research. Zotero is a similar database that downloadable from Firefox and has the added advantage of pulling the bibliographic data straight from the source into your research folder.

Style Guides:

The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers
LB2369 .G53 2009 (in the Reference Section and in Ready Reference behind the Reference Desk)

Concise Rules of APA Style
BF76.7 .C66 2005

Rules for Writers by Diana Hacker
PE1408.H277 2008

The Chicago Manual of Style
LB2369 .T8 2007 (in the Reference Section and in Ready Reference behind the Reference Desk)

A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations : Chicago Style for Students and Researchers by Kate Turabian
LB2369 .T8 2007 (in the Reference Section and in Ready Reference behind the Reference Desk)

Cite Right: A Quick Guide to Citation Styles -- MLA, APA, Chicago, the Sciences, Professions, and More by Charles Lipson
PN171.F56 L55 2006 (in Ready Reference behind the Reference Desk)