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Book Reviews (Music)

Table of Contents

• General Tips
• Databases Listing Book Reviews
• Print Resources
• Web Resources

Book reviews help you assess the author's authoritativeness, the book's significance, and the treatment of the topic (in general and in the book). Reviews may point to other sources or suggest areas for study. They can also help you determine whether you really need the book if it is located off campus.

• Many reviews are published in professional and scholarly journals. Use research databases, print bibliographies, and the Web to identify citations to reviews.

  • KNOW the strengths/coverage of the available databases/bibliographies. (Covers mostly scholarly citations? Covers applied/professional topics? Years of coverage?)
  • Consider the book's nature (scholarly, professional/applied, etc.). Select a resource that matches.

• Find the book's publication year in HOMER, WorldCat, or Books in Print. (Amazon might also work.) This helps you select the appropriate database/resource. (For example, if the book was published in 1965, you won't have as much success consulting a reference resource that covers 1979-present. You are better off with a resource that covers the 1960s.)

• Keep your search simple. Typing book's title is often enough. (See Databases below to narrow results.)

• In the print version of Music Index (used for reviews 1949-1978), citations to reviews are under "Book Reviews."

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Databases Listing Book Reviews

In general, you can just type the book's title keywords. If you must narrow down the search, however, try these strategies. The Databases menu (#10 in the left sidebar) has links to databases.

• Arts & Humanities Citation Index: go to the Advanced search, then select "book review" in the Article Type Phrase menu. A&HCI Lists reviews that do not appear in RILM.

• IIMP: type "book review" in the Document Type box (quotes not needed), or click "select from list" in that same field (this lets you narrow to favorable, mixed, or unfavorable). IIMP is good for newer reviews, and includes cites to the New York Times and Washington Post. NOTE: only the newer records say "book review." For older books (e.g., pre-1996) search the book title but leave out "book review" (otherwise you risk not finding anything). JSTOR and the print Music Index are better for these older reviews in any case.

• JSTOR: go into the Advanced search and select the "reviews" box. JSTOR is an outstanding resource for reviews of older materials since it contains the full text of several important music journals back to inception.

• Music Index: add the words "book review" (quotes not needed) in the Full Citation field. (These words can appear in any number of fields, depending on when the review was indexed.) The Document Type "Printed Material Review" is not reliable, however, it picks up some reviews that the words "book review" miss.

• RILM: select the "reviews" box. Relatively reliable. (Don't forget to type the word "and" between your search terms.) Some RILM records for books have links to the review citations.

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Print Resources

• Music Index (print version; use especially for books published before 1976). Look up book authors under "Book Reviews" to find citations to reviews of their work. Use the volumes that are the same year as, or two or three years after the book's publication. The print version goes back to 1949.
  
  
• Book Review Digest and Book Review Index. At Z 1035.A1 C96 and Z 1035.A1 B6 Babbidge Ref. Year-by-year volumes, listing citations to reviews in that year (all topics). The Digest is less comprehensive but has excerpts of the reviews. The Index is more comprehensive, but has citations only.        

• Index to Book Reviews in the Humanities. Z 1035.A1 I63 v.2-31 (1961-1990) Babbidge Ref.  
• Print bibliographies often include citations to book reviews. Examples: Duckles's music reference bibliography; Antokoletz's Bartók bibliography; Perone's form and analysis bibliography.

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Web Sources

Online vendors (e.g., Amazon, CDNow) have customer and professional reviews (e.g., from Fanfare). Reliability varies. Also try music sites such as Classical Lover's Music Exchange: Best of the Web for links to music magazines and websites.

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This page was found at http://www.lib.uconn.edu/music/bookReviews.html