Arts & Creative Industries Subject Guide

The best way to find journal articles is to try keyword searching in LibrarySearch using the Everything tab.  However, you may also want to try searching directly in some of the databases that contribute to LibrarySearch.  Here's a list of the best ones for the subject area.

Specialised music indexes 

We have non-current issue of these in print format, in Merchiston Library: 

• RILM (Répertoire international de la littérature musicale)
  • covers mainly classical music.
  • we do not have a current subscription, but we have vols. 1-29, 1967-1995.
  • Indexes all the major music journals we take, and provides citation details for many other articles that you can try to locate in other libraries, or via document supply.

• Music index
  • covers all music subjects.
  • we do not have a current subscription, but we have volumes for 1949-1997.

Other specialised music services exist, such as International Index to Music Periodicals. If you find you need access to these, or the current years of RILM or Music Index in the Honours years of your course, see the section on visiting other libraries. 

Edinburgh Central Library in George IV Bridge has a large music section, and should be visited before you consider requesting access to other academic libraries. They may be able to search their music indexes for you if you ask at the service desk. 

Edinburgh University Main Library, George Square, now incorporates the Reid Music Library collection: if you need to visit you should register first with Sconul Access to gain access. Staff, postgraduates and part-time students may be able to borrow some items, but please note that full-time Edinburgh Napier undergraduate students will not normally be allowed to borrow material from Edinburgh University Library unless you pay their external user fees. 

Is music harder to find than other subjects? Well, yes, it can be, and here's why!

CDs otten contain works by more than one composer, but can only be shelved in one place.  Music is international, and the same work can be equally well known by its title in several languages - e.g. The Marriage of Figaro / Le Nozze di Figaro / Die Hochzeit des Figaro.  Sometimes you can find what you want just by going to the shelf, but often this is not enough.

The best way to find anything in the library is to use LibrarySearch

Arrangement of stock

Our music collection is arranged according to format: 
Books, reference books, journals, videos and audiovisual kits are shelved alongside other subjects, but nearly everything to do with music will be found in the 780 range of classmark numbers. 

The main exceptions are: 

Music therapy 
Music industry 
Law relating to music

Finding types of music

We have separate sections for Scores, Miniature Scores and Oversize Scores. 

• Miniature Scores are normally orchestral or choral works for study purposes, and will give you the complete work, with all the orchestral/choral parts. Some of them are surprisingly large!

• Scores will generally be music that might be used for performance, so keyboard music, songs, music for one or two instruments and piano, vocal scores (no orchestral parts).

• Oversize scores may be either!

We shelve our printed music and recordings in composer order, and then by the shelfmark, by popular request.

Composers

Each composer has been assigned a different number to make sure that their works stay together: 

for example, Schubert is SCH50, while Schumann is SCH80.

Each composer is further subdivided using the Dewey Decimal numbers, so that Beethoven's piano music is kept separate from his symphonies, for example. 

Any items that contain works by more than one composer will be found at the end of the section, using the number ZZZ50 to keep them together, and this section is also further subdivided by the Dewey Decimal classmarks. 

So. if the catalogue tells you that the CD of a Beethoven symphony is at Compact Discs 784.2184 BEE50 -

• look in the Compact Discs section for Beethoven first

• then look for 784.2184 within Beethoven.

• the same goes for scores

We still have a small amount of printed music that is not yet on the catalogue: these items come at the end of the scores section, arranged alphabetically by composer.
 

Key Reference Books

Music stock is held in Merchiston Campus Library - for location information can be found in LIbrarySearch.

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias 

• The new Oxford companion to music : a good one-volume encyclopaedia of classical music.

• The encyclopedia of popular music : In eight volumes

• The Garland encyclopedia of world music - 10 volume set

• The new Grove dictionary of jazz : In two volumes

Directories and yearbooks 

• British and International Music Yearbook​

  • Contains contact addresses for Associations, Artists, Agents, Venues, Promoters, Competitions and Scholarships, Summer Schools, Study abroad, Music Festivals, Orchestras, Opera Companies, Recording and Broadcasting, Education, Marketing, Fund-raising, Publishers, Retailers, Insurance, Copyright, and various other relevant services.

• Music Education Yearbook​

  • Includes sections on Organisations, Resources for Teachers, Youth Performance, Examinations, Schools, Further and Higher Education, Teacher Training, International Study, Recreational and Part-time Courses, Jazz in Education, Suppliers and Services.

• British Performing Arts Yearbook​

  • Contains information on Companies and Artists in the areas of Dance, Drama, Community, Puppets, Mixed media/Entertainment, Opera, Orchestras, Jazz and Light Music, Arts Festivals, Suppliers and Services, Education, Organisations, Venues.

Music history & anthologies 

• Burkholder & Palisca - Norton anthology of Western music, 7th ed., 2014

• Burkholder, Grout, Palisca - A History of Western Music, 9th ed., 2014​

  • These two works are inter-related, and there is a collection of recordings on CD to accompany them under Norton recorded anthology of Western music, 2014.

  • The individual works included are not searchable in our catalogue under author or title, but we have included them in a contents list, which means they will be found by doing an All items search

  • We also have some older editions of each book and set of recordings, which may contain different examples of music.

Recorded music

We have a large collection of CDs and DVDs on musical subjects that can be borrowed or viewed in the Campus Library.