Every subject area has unique and specialist types of information, which mean that you need to look beyond Library Search. Some types of information are accessed via specialist databases, for example newspapers, while others are available online.
Different Information Types
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BBC Radio 4 on MusicMusic documentaries from the Radio 4 archive, from Armstrong to Zappa.
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Charles Avison CollectionCharles Avison (1709-1770) was born in Newcastle and became England’s most important eighteenth-century concerto composer. Newcastle City Library houses The Avison Archive in conjunction with The Avison Society.
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The Full English (English Folk Dance and Song Society)The world's biggest digital archive of English traditional music and dance: 44,000 records and 58,000 images.
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Glastonbury Festival ArchiveOfficial archive documenting the history of this famous music festival.
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Irish Traditional Music ArchiveThis digital archive contains sound recordings, interactive scores and other items relating to Irish traditional music.
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Joseph Hornsby CollectionJoseph Hornsby is a Northumbrian fiddler with an extensive multimedia archive of traditional Scottish country dance music. This online archive (a project based in ICMuS) has a fascinating social history as well as great musical value, and is a valuable resource for musicians and scholars alike.
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Opera at the Victoria and Albert museumDigitised collections relating to opera from the Victoria and Albert museum.
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Rock's BackpagesThe largest database of online music journalism, providing access to thousands of interviews, reviews and articles about artists of all genres, from Aaliyah to ZZ Top. Coverage dates back 50 years, and also includes 500 audio interviews.
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Bodleian BalladsThe Bodleian Library holds over 30,000 ballads from the 16th to 20th centuries.
This project makes the ballads and ballad sheets available to the research community. -
Digital Image Archive of Medieval MusicThis online archive contains images of European polyphonic music manuscripts dating from 800-1550.
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Early Music OnlineA project in which 300 of the world’s earliest surviving volumes of printed music, held in the British Library, have been digitised and made freely available online.
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Medieval Music Manuscripts OnlineInternational virtual library of music sources, documenting over 8,000 noted manuscripts for the medieval period up to 1600.
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Music collections on microformOur Media Room on Level 4 contains various music collections on microfilm and microfiche, including Manuscript collection of the British Library; Music collection of Christ Church; Music collection of the Cambridge Libraries.
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MusopenWe provide recordings, sheet music, and textbooks to the public for free, without copyright restrictions.
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Sheet music collectionsFrom Duke University: site listing collections of sheet music with public access.
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Sibley Music LibraryMusic scores in the Sibley Music Library collection, available to download as PDFs
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Bloomsbury Popular MusicComprehensive resource covering all genres of popular music, including ebooks, books about significant LPs, artist biographies and interactive timeline and map.
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Cambridge History of MusicNine volumes of this major work available online.
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Live Music ExchangeA web hub from Edinburgh University all about live music, which links topical discussion with resources, reports and practical guides.
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Music: British Library GuideGuides to collections and online resources held at the British Library and elsewhere, relating to music (classical, popular and world).
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Music libraries and conservatoires on Library Hub DiscoverBlog post giving an overview of the music libraries and conservatoires whose catalogues you can search on Library Hub Discover.
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Oxford Music OnlineThe online gateway to the major music reference work, Grove Music Online, with comprehensive coverage of music, musicians and music scholarship across many genres.
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StatistaAn extensive statistics platform covering over 1.5 million data sets (and adding an additional 500 each day) with revenue forecasts from 2015 to 2022 on over 400 industries. Data is collected from over 22,500 sources covering over 75,000 different topics.
Online Music and Sound Resources
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Archival Sound Recordings (British Library)Online sound archives from the British Library, including music, interviews, oral history, radio recordings, field recordings.
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Box of BroadcastsBox of Broadcasts provides access to over 2.2 million TV and radio broadcasts from over 75 channels, including most of the UK’s freeview network, all BBC TV and radio content from 2007, and several foreign language channels. This resource is not available outside the UK.
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CHARM - 78rpms5,000 sound recordings of 78rpm discs from the 'Musicians of Britain and Ireland 1900-1950' project.
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FreesoundCollaborative database of Creative Commons-licensed sounds.
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World Music archive (Radio 3)Explore over a decade's worth of BBC Radio 3 world music recordings.
