Background Sources: Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, and Handbooks
Reference tools such as dictionaries and encyclopedias are good places to start your research because they provide an overview of the topic as well as keywords, dates, and facts. There are many genres of music, so please ask for help if you have a specific style in mind.
-
Credo Reference Academic Core (This link opens in a new window)
A comprehensive collection of subject encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, and reference handbooks. Also included are short reference videos and high-resolution images. Useful background information source.
-
Oxford Music Online (This link opens in a new window)This collection of scholarly music encyclopedias and reference works includes Grove Music Online, the Oxford Companion to Music, and the Oxford Dictionary of Music. Also includes timelines and the Grove Opera Indexes. This content is updated regularly to reflect the latest scholarship. Simultaneous users limit: 3.
-
Oxford Reference Online: Premium (This link opens in a new window)
A comprehensive collection of scholarly encyclopedias and dictionaries published by Oxford University Press. A useful background information source for starting your research. Simultaneous user limit: 5.
-
Pop Culture Universe: Icons, Idols and Ideas (This link opens in a new window)Contains information on popular culture in America, both past and present. Includes cultural overview essays broken down by decade and provides images, maps, and videos. Includes primary sources.
-
U.S. History in Context (This link opens in a new window)A collection of journals, magazines, newspapers, background sources, and primary documents that covers the most-studied events and issues in U.S. history. Contains images, video, and audio files, as well as primary source material.
Tip: If you found a great source, try looking at the bibliography or other sources mentioned on linked in the text. This is a great way to discover additional relevant sources for your own research.
-
Encyclopedia of African American Music
by
Call Number: OnlineISBN: 1282932993Publication Date: 2010 -
-
Summer of Soul (... or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
by
Call Number: OnlineISBN: 9781032502533Publication Date: 2023The fifth title in the Docalogue series, this book examines Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson's 2021 documentary, Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). The award-winning film draws on archival footage and interviews to examine the legacy of the Harlem Cultural Festival, a showcase of Black music staged weekly throughout the summer of 1969. The film interrogates this event as a piece of "forgotten" history and prompts critical reflection on why this history was lost while also raising important questions related to archival preservation and cultural memory. Combining five different perspectives, this book acts both as an intensive scholarly treatment and as a pedagogical guide for how to analyze, theorize, and contextualize a documentary. Together, the essays in this book touch upon key topics related to the study of popular music, musical performance, and audiences; the discovery and reuse of archives and archival documents; and Black studies and American cultural history more broadly. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in multiple areas including but not limited to archival studies, Black studies, cultural studies, documentary studies, historiography, and music studies.
