Scholarly and appropriate resources on music can be difficult to locate on the Internet as many items will be simple discographies without the information you really need. Here are print, electronic, and Internet resources to help you in your research.

• Getting Started
• Books
• Journal Articles
• Online Resources
• Style Guides
• Sources by Geography (new page)
• Finding full text using RILM (new page)
• Library Distance Services (new page)
• Off-campus Access to Research Databases (new page)
• Circuit and Interlibrary Loan (new page)

 

Getting Started

Save time and effort! As with any research project, it is best to do some exploratory research on the topic to be sure appropriate and sufficient resources are available before committing much time or effort. The African Diaspora is a huge topic, both in geography and time period. The topic has begun to narrow by looking at music (rather than religion, trade or other aspects) but here are some steps to move you forward.

• Organize your thoughts about what you know about your musical community (generally a geographic region or nation).
• Decide what aspect interests you and meets the requirements for your research paper (religious or popular music, appropriation by others, adaptation to the local cultural styles...)
• Review your class notes and readings to this point for terms and personal names as leads to more information.

 

Books

The easiest way to start to find material is by typing a few important words that identify your topic into the catalog's search box and examining the results to develop more focused language. For this class, You might start with the term diaspora. Since this can be used a number of ways, adding additional words such as music, your geographic region, or other specific terms that apply to your research focus. A search in our catalog will bring back a number of items, books, videos and more. Here is an example:

1. Type diaspora into the keyword search box (278 hits--too many!)
2. Type diaspora and music into the keyword search box (20 hits, but is this all?)
3. Try other terms, such as music and Brazil (if that is your geographic area). Look for texts that address history as there will be discussion of influences. Note that this search did not use diaspora or Africa as search terms, yet you will still find useful materials.

Useful Subject Terms

Once you have found some useful titles through keyword searching, look at the lower part of the book record for the subject links. These are terms to identify what an item is about, regardless of the title, spelling or terminology used by the author. Library catalogs use specific subject headings to group related books together.  You can also see some other topics addressed in this book to give you new ideas of connections. Searching with various terms reveals these subject headings or new paths:

• Blacks -- Cuba -- Music -- History And Criticism

• Latin Jazz -- History And Criticism

• Santeria -- Music -- History And Criticism (Santeria is a belief system in which music plays a large role)

• Folk Music -- Latin America

• Rap Music (it is not limited to the US)

• Reggae Music -- Jamaica (note geographic focus, there are also books on reggae that would be broader in scope and address many regions.)

• Spirituals (Songs)

• Aguabella, Francisco (noted Afro-Cuban drummer who is a product of the African influences on Cuban music)

 

Reference Books (in library use)

Various titles will provide information on music and music history, here are some of the best in the CSUSM reference collection.

The New Grove Dictionary. These series are found in various locations in the Reference area, ML section.
      ...of Music and Musicians is found at REF ML100 N48
      ...of Jazz is found at REF ML102 .J3 N48 1988
      ...of American Music is found at REF ML101 .U6 N48 1986
      and New Grove Gospel, Blues and Jazz is found at REF ML3556 .O456 1986

The Encyclopedia of Popular Music    REF ML102 .P66 G84 1998
(The earlier edition is called Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music and is now in the book stacks available to check out.)
 
Music Index   REF  ML118 .M84
Useful for historical or older journals as many of the electronic databases do not go back past the late 1980s

Garland Encyclopedia of World Music   REF ML100 .G16
Of note for this class are v.1 (Africa) and v.2 (South America, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean)

New Oxford History of Music  ML160 .N44

Sound Recordings Search

Since you are in a Music class, you will want to find sound recordings to enhance your research and this format can be retrieved without cluttering your search with books. In the Library Catalog type your search terms in the keyword search box. Once you have a result set, click on the MODIFY SEARCH button and select Music Rec... in the MATERIAL TYPE box. You may do this for video recordings as well. Most materials are held in the Media Library (2nd floor, but some may be shelved with books they accompany on the other floors of the library.)

Genre Searches

If you are interested in a specific type of resource, such as video recordings of music performances, we have the tool for you! In the library catalog, change the search field label to GENRE/FORM and type in "music". This is a growing category, but right now you will find:

• Music Electronic Journals (all full-text journals we have in electronic format, we do have print titles as well)
• Music Video Recordings (these may be documentaries or offer interviews and analysis compared to the Music Videos category)
• Music Videos (these are recordings of performances and there is some overlap of titles as in the Music Video Recordings category)

Other Options

Circuit (1-3 day delivery))
Search the collections of other San Diego area libraries -- about 3,000,000 books. Find and request books directly online; pick them up at our Library in 1-3 days.

WorldCat (5-10 day delivery)
Search the collections of libraries world-wide -- about 52,000,000 books. Find a book in this database, and fill-out an Interlibrary Loan delivery request. Book will be delivered to Library for pickup.

 

Journal Articles

Journals include some of the latest research in the field. They are a good source for finding very detailed information on your topic. You will find some of our research databases do not offer full text of the articles. Use the button to check our other resources for full text. In most cases, you can email the article to yourself.

With over 150 databases, it is a good thing to think about the type of information you want before jumping in and possibly searching in the wrong place. Here are some places to start:

Grove Music Online
Comprises the full text of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2d edition, 2001), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992), and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (2d edition, 2002). Includes updated articles.

RILM Music Abstracts
Abstracts from scholarly journals on international music and related disciplines.

Academic Search Premier (Ebscohost)
Full-text. A large, multi-disciplinary database offering full text for nearly 1,850 scholarly journals as well as non-scholarly titles, including more than 1,250 peer-reviewed titles.

Project Muse
Full text. Includes a small collection of scholarly journals in art. This complements older holdings of some titles offered in JSTOR.

JSTOR
Full-text. Contains complete full-text back files (EXCEPT for the latest five years) of core scholarly journals in such areas as sociology, history, economics, political science, mathematics, African-American studies, Asian studies and others. Art is not yet a separate journal collection in this database, but the history collection is a useful place to search when researching older works.

 

Online Resources

The following are some of the better (scholarly, researched information rather than opinion) Internet sites that you may find useful.  More specific sources are on the MUSIC 423 Geography page. 

• African Music Encyclopedia
• AfroPop Worldwide
• In Motion: The African American Migration Experience
• American Memory (Library of Congress offers several collections that would be useful)
• Archives of African American Music and Culture
• African Studies: African Diaspora (extensive list of links)
• African Studies: Music and Dance of Africa (another extensive list)

Searching Tips (good to follow for the catalog, databases and internet)

• Check your spelling!
• If you aren't getting enough hits try using fewer words to describe your topic.
• Change the terminology you are using (maybe more will come back using "world music" as opposed to "afro-cuban music".)

 

Style Guides

As you write your annotation, it is helpful (and ethical) to clearly provide the information about the source document. CSUSM uses several different citation styles. One style popular with humanities scholars is the Modern Language Association (MLA) style. The Quick Summary link below provides basic information about what citation elements you need to include or refer to the library's print copy for more in depth information.

Sites with examples of in-text citations and works cited pages.

MLA Quick Summary of Bibliography
In-text citing and works cites examples.

Citing in Your Paper
Examples of including the citation pointers in your text.

It is highly recommended that you have your own copy of the APA Manual, as the library's copies are often checked out.

MLA handbook for writers of research papers. 6th ed. New York : Modern Language Association of America, 2003. Quick Summary (, 175K) Diana Hacker's page on MLA documentation (links for manuscript format, in-text and list of works cited.) Library copies (LB2369 .G53)