UC Berkeley Music Library, Get Research Help

Jean Gray Hargrove
Music Library

Guides to Music Resources

How to...find journal articles in music

Finding journal articles in music is basically a two-step process. A third step is required only if the first two steps are unsuccessful:

Use a music periodical index to find article citations, making sure to record important information, such as author, article title, publication dates, pages, and especially journal title or source.

Use the GLADIS/Pathfinder or MELVYL catalog to find whether the Music Library has a given source or journal title cited in print; use the Table of Online Music Journals to find out whether the desired journal source is available online in full text.
If the desired journal is not on the shelf at UCB or available online request the item from Interlibrary Borrowing Services or get help from a reference librarian.

Step 1. Use a music periodical index to find article citations.

The Berkeley Music Library offers three major online article indexes devoted to current music periodical literature and one retrospective index. These indexes differ greatly, from the sources or journal titles covered to the way they describe and index article citations. Because each index has an area of relative strength—Music Index Online, for example, is strongest in the field of music education, IIMP in performance topics, and RILM Abstracts of Music Literature in musicology—thorough research often involves checking more than one when looking for article citations. Further information about these indexes, as well as the retrospective index, RIPM, is available at the Music Library page on Search Indexes for Articles and Music Literature.

Searching music indexes available at UCB will generate citation lists indicating what has been published or what is generally available; they will not tell you if articles are available specifically at UCB. Citations simply provide the information you need in order to find the articles in the UCB library and later, in your writing, lead others to the work you use. Citations may contain many kinds of information about an article, including a summary or abstract; make sure to record at least the author, article title, and journal title or source. The following citation from RILM, for example, was one of a handful obtained in a keyword search for articles on settings of odes by Horace. The first three lines of the record, especially Source, contain the essential information needed to find the article.

Title: Les vers lascifs d'Horace: Arcadelt's Latin chansons.

Author: Van Orden, Kate

Source: The Journal of Musicology Vol. 14; Issue 3; summer 1996; pp. 338-369; Music ISSN: 0277-9269.

Publication Type: article in a periodical or yearbook; ap

Major Topic: Historical musicology - To ca. 1600 (Renaissance)

Abstract: Five Latin-texted chansons by Jacques Arcadelt were printed in «Sixiesme livre de chansons» by Le Roy & Ballard in 1556 and 1559. Three are settings of odes from Horace's «Carmina», the text of another is from Virgil's «Aeneid», and the last is from Martial's «Epigrammata». The Horatian odes received strophic settings, and the Martial setting is repetitive but not strictly strophic. Arcadelt's setting of Virgil's «At trepida et coeptis» is through-composed in a homorhythmic and quasi-declamatory style that follows the accents of Virgil's prosody. His Latin chansons reveal reliance on rhythmic patterns common to the repertoire of Latin «frottole» and the classicizing idioms of Italian oral lyric. Their composition in France under the patronage of Charles de Guise, Cardinal of Lorraine, suggests the Guise salon as a site of attempts to recover "ancient" lyric practices and an important precursor of Jean-Antoine de Baïf's academy and its experiments with «musique mesurée». (Yarmey, Kenneth E.)

Subjects: arcadelt, jacques » works » chansons » latin-texted; horace » literary works » carmina » odes » set by arcadelt; virgil » literary works » aeneid » set by arcadelt; martial » literary works » epigrammata » set by arcadelt; publishers and printers » le roy & ballard; chanson [14th-16th c.] » arcadelt, j. » latin-texted; text setting » arcadelt, j. » chansons; ode » horace » carmina » set by arcadelt; literature » virgil » aeneid » set by arcadelt; literature » martial » epigrammata » set by arcadelt; baïf, jean-antoine de » works » musique mesurée » precedents; patronage » arcadelt, j. » by guise; guise, charles de » life » patronage » of arcadelt; frottola » rhythm » latin settings » influence on arcadelt

Language: English

Summary Language: English

Record ID: 1996-02873-ap

Step 2. Use the GLADIS/Pathfinder or MELVYL catalog to find whether the Music Library has a given source or journal title.

Once you have a citation you will need to find out whether the source cited—the journal or periodical title—is available at UCB. Use the GLADIS/Pathfinder or MELVYL catalog to find whether the Music Library has a given source or journal title.

GLADIS
1. Enter f ti [journal title] (include all words except initial articles)
2. Look for "<serial>" in the listings to distinguish journals from books
3. Enter the item number to see holdings information

For example, in GLADIS:

===> f ti journal of musicology

Your search for the Title: JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY
retrieved 2 items.

   Title List
    ----------
    1.  The journal of musicology. <serial>
    2.  The Journal of musicology : JM. <serial>

Selecting "2" reveals that the Music Library owns a complete run of the journal, at ML1.J693, and that certain issues are available online in full-text:

2.  Journal of musicology (St. Joseph, Mich.)
    The Journal of musicology : JM.
    St. Joseph, Mich. : Imperial Printing Co., c1982
    Also available via the World Wide Web (Restricted to 
      CatchWord subscribers).
    Selected article text available through Expanded Academic 
      ASAP.
    Electronic location: 
      v.18(2001)- http://www.catchword.com/rpsv/catchword/ 
      ucp/02779269/contp1-1.htm  
    Electronic location: 
      Selected article text for 1994- Expanded Academic ASAP. 
      Restricted to UC campuses http://uclibs.org/PID/9759

--------------> CONTINUED ON NEXT SCREEN <-------------------

                                           NUMBER 2, SCREEN 2 
Music   ML1.J693
         Circ. note:  Library use only
         Library has: BOUND 1(1982)-22(2005); later issues unbound

The bottom part of the screen indicates that vol. 14 of the Journal of Musicology (1996) can be found on the Music Library shelves at ML1.J693; the article also appears in a volume that can be accessed online, through a database called Expanded Academic ASAP (see "Electronic Location"). A direct link to the database containing the article would be available from the results screen after a journal title search of the Pathfinder catalog.

Pathfinder
1. Choose "Title Phrase" search
2. Limit by Publication Format: "Journal Titles"
3. Enter [journal title] (all words except initial articles)
4. Select journal title link to see holdings information

Not all journal titles that are available online in full-text will have a catalog record indicating so; Cambridge Opera Journal and Musica disciplina are two such cases. Before going out to the shelves to find an item in print you might then first check the Berkeley Music Library Table of Online, Full-Text Music Journals, which gathers information concerning online availability from a number of sources, to see if the article is available from the desktop.

Step 3. If the desired journal is not on the shelf at UCB or available online request the item from Interlibrary Borrowing Services or get help from a reference librarian.

If you find an article from a source that is unavailable at the UCB library you should then request the material via Interlibrary Borrowing Services. Forms for requesting items from another library, articles as well as books, are available at the Music Library reference desk or, preferably, online using the Interlibrary Borrowing Services Request Form. Items requested from another library must be picked up at the office of Interlibrary Borrowing Services, Room 133, Doe Library, after you have been notified it is available. Interlibrary borrowing services are free to UCB students, faculty, and staff.

If you have problems or questions collecting or locating information from periodicals please do not hesitate to call the Music Library reference desk at 642-2624 or stop by for a consultation.