Musical Theater Research Guide

Use this example search to guide you through the steps of an initial search for a vocal score in HOLLIS.

Step 1: Define your resource standards, and create your initial search.

• I’m looking for a copy of “Ol’ Man River." A printed and notated vocal score from Show Boat should work best for my assignment based on the syllabus, the assignment description, and my professor’s recommendations.
  • The definition of a “reliable source” depends on many factors, including the parameters of your research, an assignment’s instructions, guidelines from a course syllabus, or the scholarly norms for a particular field. If you are still unsure, ask your instructor or reference librarians for guidance.

I’ll start with HOLLIS: I want to see results from just what’s in the Harvard Library catalog. To do that, I select “Library Catalog” from the search bar’s drop-down menu.

• "Catalog & Articles" allows you to see items in the Harvard Library catalog, as well as items you can access through outside platforms accessible via HarvardKey.
• "Library Catalog" limits your search to items in the Harvard Library catalog.
• "Reserves (Books & Media)" limits your search to only show items that are on a reading list for specific courses.

Next, I create my search term. I only want to see scores for Show Boat, so I’m using strategies to make sure of that when I search.

• I decided to search using “score” AND Ol’ Man River AND Show Boat – Use the recommendations outlined in “Search Strategies” on this guide’s Home page to help craft the right search term for you.
• When searching in HOLLIS, If you're browsing for song collections, other helpful subject keywords include terms like these (you don't need to include the punctuation):
  • Musicals -- Vocal scores
  • Operas -- Excerpts [or Musicals -- Excerpts]
  • Songs (Medium voice) with piano [and so on, for different voice ranges]
  • Popular songs
  • Songs, English [or other language]

The first resource that comes up in my search results is a great fit for my assignment. 

• It’s a notated vocal score of Show Boat, that includes “Ol’ Man River,” based on the item’s description and subject headings.

Step 2: Accessing the resource.

I can access this score in multiple ways.

• For scores, you can view an item’s location under the “Access Options” heading, which includes information on an item’s physical location and links for options like “Request Pickup,” “Interlibrary Loan”, and/or “Scan and Deliver (Book Chapter).”
• Some materials that are digitally available show a “View PDF” or “Online Access” button, just below the item’s title at the top of the page.

Step 3: Options for continuing your search.

If I want to continue browsing for related scores or other works, there are a few options built into HOLLIS that I can choose from.

• I can use filters on the original list of search results, to narrow my search by date, subject, format, language, and more.
• I can also go back to my original search, and refine the search terms and strategies I chose to amend my search result.
• The subject headings in this HOLLIS record are also links, and I can select one of those subject headings to see more resources with the same subject heading.
• HOLLIS's ‘Related Reading’ sidebar comes up with certain searches, and suggests resources that are recommended by HOLLIS for further reading. If one of those looks like it will also help my assignment, or if it could be a better fit than my original result, I can continue searching there.
• If something does not appear to be accessible through HOLLIS, I can apply these search strategies to other databases/search engines, and/or check my options for accessing resources from other libraries through Interlibrary Loan or BorrowDirect.

Find the listing for a song, then use HOLLIS to search for the titles of the collections in which it's printed. Warning: this database isn't comprehensive, and Harvard does not own all of the anthologies it indexes.

Request an anthology we don't own from another library by using Borrow Direct or Interlibrary Loan.