A Guide to finding MUSIC MATERIALS in the
Mercer County Community College Library
Compiled by Greg Smith. December 2008
The MCCC Library uses the Library of Congress classification and call number system.
There are THREE major categories for MUSIC MATERIALS.
M - is used for music, itself, that is things in musical notation. You will find scores, piano music, song books, sheet music, and books of music for solo instruments here. You will also find some music survey books here if they have a lot of examples in score in the text; A History of Folk Songs, for example.
ML - is used for music literature, i.e., books written about music as a subject. Books on the periods of musical history and on musical styles are here; also, biographies of composers and other noted musicians.
MT - is used for music theory and music textbooks. Here you will find books on harmony, counterpoint, and the analysis of compositional techniques. Methods for learning musical instruments are here, too.
Music CD's are kept at the Circulation Desk. The Library has several good survey sets covering the whole gamut of music history in the West and an extensive collections of JAZZ RECORDINGS covering all periods and styles. Please, ask for a librarian to help you find particular items in the music CD's.
The Reference collection has an excellent selection of music encyclopedias, dictionaries, and guides. The best of these is the exhaustive NEW GROVE DICTIONARY OF MUSIC AND MUSICIANS found at Ref ML 100 .N48. The other music references are on shelves below and to the right of the "Grove."
The Library subscribes to several of the leading print music journals, however, the best way to find specific music topics in Journal Articles is to use one of the Library's online databases. Go to the College's homepage www.mccc.edu . Open the "Select One" pull down from the Quick Picks at the top right corner of the screen to get to the LIBRARY page. Once you are on the Library page choose Online Databases & Search Engines in the black tool-bar along the left side column of the page. This will put you into an ALPHABETICAL list of Hot-Links to our databases. The best ones for finding music topics are:
Academic Search Premier for any music topic, general or specific, historical or theoretical.
Oxford Reference Online (Go down the page to Subject Reference and pick Performing Arts for music)
JSTOR has many good articles on music topics, mostly in non-music scholarly journals.
Biographies Plus for material on composers, performers, & theorists, past and present.
New York Times Historical covering 1851-2003. Good for reviews, premiers, and major musical events.
ABI Trade & Industry for extensive coverage of all aspects of the music world as a commercial venture.
Issues & Controversies On-file, unfortunately, does not have any material on whether the trill should begin on the principal note or the note above, but it does have good stuff about the Politics of Music Education Funding and about the Music Lyrics Censorship Controversy.
NOTE: the Library Reference Staff is always ready to help you in searching any music sources.