Music Research Guide

The BC Libraries have an extensive collection of recordings, some available online and thousands on CD. Most CDs are housed on the main floor of O'Neill Library and can be checked out. 

Use the Boston College Libraries catalog, to find recordings. Click on "Advanced Search," select "Musical Recordings" from the Material Type drop-down menu, and enter the name of the composer and/or some words from the title of the piece in the "keyword" box.

Other tips:

• Use keywords and truncation i.e. symphon* (i.e. symphon* Bruckner)
   
• If you are not getting any results or are getting only a few results use less terms i.e. If a search for - Mozart piano concerto f major – brings up only LPs, try Mozart piano concert*, which will include the complete piano concertos
   
• If you are looking for a recording of a piece which includes a foreign word, start with a keyword search.  Click on the "Details" tab to find "the Uniform Title".  The Uniform title identifies an item if it appears under different names. To find more entries do a new keyword search using the uniform title as your search terms. For example a keyword search for Scheherazade will show that we have two LPs, but a search on the uniform title “Shekherazada” will show that we have two cds and two LPs.

If a recording is not owned by the Boston College Libraries you can request a copy in the following ways:

1. Place a request through Interlibrary Loan.  BC Library staff will borrow the recording from another library.

2. Use WorldCat to locate the recording at a library within the Boston Library Consortium, get a consortium card at the O'Neill Circulation Desk, and go to the library to borrow the recording.

3. Recommend that the recording be purchased for the library by emailing nina.bogdanovsky@bc.edu