Music
Searching Tips for the Library Catalog
| By: |
Linda Hildebrand
Assistant Professor
Reference Coordinator & Archives
|
Phone: (248)
370-2483
E-mail: hildebra@oakland.edu |
Ask A Librarian
Feel free to call, email, chat, or stop by the reference desk if you have questions. |
AUTHOR SEARCHING
Composers and performers
are considered authors. To find works they composed or performed
you need to do an author search. Enter personal names
with the last name first.
Some examples:
composers: schubert
franz
bernstein leonard
performers: horowitz
vladimir
kvartet imeni borodina
rolling stones
TITLE SEARCHING
Music materials
often have two titles, the one that actually appears on the
piece and a supplied title called the uniform title that groups
all pieces of the same music under one consistent entry. The
uniform title appears
above the title page title on the bibliographic record (look for the bold type at the top of the record). Many
uniform titles are in the original language. Some examples:
prelude and fugue in C major (title on piece)
preludes and fugues, organ, op. 36. No. 3 (uniform title)
marriage of figaro
(title on piece)
nozze di figaro (uniform title)
SUBJECT SEARCHING
Materials in the
catalog have topical subjects assigned using controlled vocabulary
terms that are listed in the Library of Congress Subject
Headings. A subject heading such as "piano music" will
normally refer to scores and sound recordings. Books on "piano
music" will have subdivisions added, e.g. piano music - history
and criticism, piano music - analysis, appreciation. Individuals
and performing groups are not listed in the LC Subject Headings
book but can be searched by subject. Some examples:
flute music (score
or sound recording of music for the flute)
flute fingering (book on how to finger the flute)
operas (musical score or sound recordings of an opera)
opera (book about opera
schubert franz
(enter last name first)
presley elvis
KEYWORD SEARCHING
Keyword searches
can locate words appearing anywhere in the author, title,
subject, contents or notes parts of the record. Searching
by keyword is useful when you are unsure of the exact wording
or when you want to combine keywords, such as a word from
a title with a composer's name. The library catalog provides
different ways of performing keyword searches: On the Basic search screen, choose All Fields or Boolean (And Or Not); or, use the Advanced search where you can specify what fields to search
by using the drop-down menu and selecting a specific field.
LIMITING RESULTS
In the Library Catalog, the Basic Search screen provides a "Limit To" drop box which includes some of the basic locations and formats. For additional limit features (language, location, date, format, place of publication, item type), used the Advanced Search.
Some examples:
Under Location
you can limit to:
Cassettes
Compact disc
Journals
Reference book
LP recordings
Under Type you
can limit to:
Book
Music score
Musical (sound) recording
LLH/1.14.94/rev10.2.08music