• Catalogs
• Introduction
• Finding Books
• Finding Music Scores and Recordings
• Finding World Music in the Library

Any time you conduct a search in a catalog, you should can the results and read the full records of items whose titles look like they might be promising. Use the contents listed and any subject headings to come up with additional words to search with or to narrow your topic with.

Introduction

The Library has materials in many formats, including books, music scores, recordings (CDs, LPs, cassettes), videos (DVDs, VHS, and laserdisc), journals, microfilm. These items can all be found in the Library's catalog, although several older things are still only found via the card catalog (in the reference area). If you are attempting to do a comprehensive search, you'll need to check both places.

NOTE: What you won't find in the library catalog are individual journal articles--to find those you'll need to use one or more journal databases (see the tab in this guide titled "Journal articles.")

U of I Online Catalog

The U of I's online library catalog contains full information (bibliographic records) for books, scores, recordings, etc. that came into the library after 1978. For materials that entered the library before 1978, use the card catalog located in the public computing area of MPAL. Often you'll want to narrow down your catalog search by format so you don't have to look through all of the scores and recordings of Mozart symphonies to find the one score you want.

IShare and WorldCat

You can also view the holdings of and borrow from the 65 other libraries in Illinois belonging to IShare using the IShare catalog. For an even broader scope, you can use WorldCat, which lists the holdings of most of the libraries in this country and beyond.

Below are several examples of how to search the catalog. While there is no one right way, there are some tricks that can make your searching more efficient.

• More explanation of material formats and searching can be found in the "What is it?" tab of this guide.
  
• Further explanation of where each type of material is located in the Library is found in the "Where is it?" tab of this guide.

Search by book title

Sometimes you already know the title for the book you need. In that case you can do a simple "Start of Title" searched limited to "Books."

Books about a topic

At some point you will need to search for books about your topic.

There are several ways you could approach this. For example to get all books about music and popular culture we'll use a search like this (quotation marks keep phrases together):

Once you find something in the results list that looks promising, open the full record for the item and take a look. Are there subject terms that might help you narrow your search? Is the book available in more than one library and is it on the shelf?

Searching subject headings

Subject headings tell you what an item is about. This is especially helpful if you want to narrow your results to items about a composer and not items by the composer. You can search directly on subject headings, which is best done in an advanced search.

Other useful phrases found in subject headings include "criticism and intepretation" which can be combined with a composer's name such as Brahms, Johannes, 1833-1897--Criticism and interpretation and "analysis, appreciation" which can be combined with a genre such as Operas--Analysis, appreciation.

You can limit your search to "music scores," if you only want printed music. Of course, if you want recordings, select "music recordings." These limits are "sticky"--once you set them they persist until you clear them.

I don't recommend doing a title search for most compositions unless they have very specific titles like "West Side Story" or "Satyagraha." Smaller works are often found in collections with generic names, etc, so searching for them by title doesn't usually work. Instead, to search for a score or recording of a specific piece it's best to use a boolean search like beethoven and piano and sonatas and 28 (if you want piano sonata Op. 28). If you need an individual song, do a boolean search for the composer's name and the song title, like: Schubert and "Auf dem Flusse" (if that doesn't work you might need to search for the title of the larger work, like: Schubert and Winterreise.

When world music recordings are added to the Music Library’s collection, they are given an alphanumeric code taken from the Outline of World Cultures, 6th rev. ed. (New Haven, Conn: Human Relations Area Files, 1983).

You can locate world music recordings by searching for this code in the library’s online and card catalogs.

Step one: Locate the Outline of World Cultures behind the Reference Desk. The call number is GN345.3 M871983.

Step two: Using the index, find the alphanumeric code for the continent, geographic region, nation, or ethnic group in which you’re interested.

Example: You wish to listen to recordings from Mongolia. You check the index and discover the code is AH1.

Step three: Search the online catalog.

Do a Quick Search -- Subject Headings for HRAF AH1. Don’t forget the HRAF in front of the code and leave a space between the HRAF and the code! This should return a list of compact discs, records, and cassettes of Mongolian music.

Step four: Search the card catalog.

Go the beginning of the H drawer and search for HRAF AH1. Searching the card catalog will give you older records and cassettes. Hint: If you can't find what you’re looking for, try using a more general number. For example, if you’re looking for recordings from the Amhara, a region in Ethiopia (HRAF MP5), but get no results, search the general number for Ethiopia (HRAF MP1).

If you need assistance, please ask!