Tips for Searching Success
What to Ask
- Who/what/where/when: performers, program, concert date and location, record label, etc. You may not need to know it all, but using this information as keywords makes your searching more efficient.
- Target your search. Where might a performance or recording be reviewed: local or national papers? trade journals? popular or indie music magazines?
How to Look
- Check the dates of coverage. Don't waste time searching in a database with reviews that are too old or too recent.
- Limit before you search. If you can't restrict your search to reviews, try using "review" as a keyword.
- Search multiple databases. There will probably be overlap, but each one contains a slightly different set of journals and newspapers.
Troubleshoot Your Results
- Found a promising citation, but didn't get the full text? Use the "Get It" or "Check Access Options" link to check Harvard's collections for a copy: it may be in print.
- Install the Harvard Library Proxy Bookmarklet to bypass pay walls and reload pages using Harvard's subscriptions.
Review Sources
- Music & Performing Arts Collection (1864-present)Indexes scholarly and popular journals; several hundred have full text. Use Advanced Search to limit by Document Type (e.g.: “Performance Review,” “Music Review,” “Recording Review”).
- Music Index Online (1970-present)Indexes 800+ music periodicals, with strengths in popular music, ethnomusicology, and reviews. Music Index Online covers articles published from 1970-present; earlier volumes are available in print.
- Music Periodicals DatabaseAn index of articles and reviews from over 400 scholarly and popular music periodicals (1874-present), plus full text for around 140 journals. (Formerly known as International Index to Music Periodicals, IIMP)
- Entertainment Industry Magazine ArchiveA full-text collection for the study of the film and entertainment industries, including trade magazines, fanzines, and popular music magazines (1880-2000).
- Rock's BackpagesCollected reviews, interviews, and articles about popular music from the 1950s to the present.
- International Bibliography of Theatre and Dance with Full Text (1929-present)Indexes the scholarly literature of theatre; Covers 1929-present, but the most complete indexing is from 1980-present. Click on "Publications" link to see dates for each title, and use the document type "Entertainment Review" to limit your search.
- RIPM: Retrospective Index to Music PeriodicalsFull text of international music journals (1800-1950); useful for primary source research in musical thought and culture in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
- HOLLISMany newspaper articles can be found in Harvard's main library catalogue. Sign in with your Harvard Key to get more results.
- NexisUniFull-text newspaper articles from the last several decades: useful for current news and reviews
- Periodicals Index OnlineAn index to tables of contents of periodicals in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.
- Reader's Guide Retrospective (1890-1992)An index of popular and general interest magazines published in the United States and Canada.
- Academic Search PremierA multi-disciplinary index with full text of over 8500 journals; also indexes major newspapers such as The New York Times.
- Library Guide to Newspapers and Newspaper IndexesTips for finding newspapers and newspaper articles, online and in print, foreign and U.S.
