Library Research Guides: Folklore: All Resources I Recommend

Periodical Indexes

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Music and Song

Academic Search (EBSCO)
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Provides full-text coverage of magazine, newspaper, and scholarly journal articles for most academic disciplines.
This multi-disciplinary database provides full-text for more than 4,500 journals, including full text for more than 3,700 peer-reviewed titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles.
MLA International Bibliography
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The MLA Bibliography indexes material in modern languages, literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, folklore, and film.
It contains references to scholarly research from journals and series, monographs, chapters of books, working papers, dissertations, proceedings, Festschriften and bibliographies.

Internationale volkskundliche Bibliographie = International folklore bibliography
Call Number: Z5982 .I62
ISBN: 00749737
Publication Date: 1948-1999

MLA International Bibliography
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The MLA Bibliography indexes material in modern languages, literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, folklore, and film.
It contains references to scholarly research from journals and series, monographs, chapters of books, working papers, dissertations, proceedings, Festschriften and bibliographies.
Music Index Online
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Index to all types of items concerning music and the music industry
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text
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Comprehensive bibliography of writings about music featuring citations, abstracts and indexes. Covers nearly one and a half million publications from the early 19th century to the present on traditional music, popular music, jazz, classical music, and related subjects. Also includes full text of over 260 periodicals. New titles are added annually
Offers international coverage of the music scene, covering books, bibliographies, conference proceedings, catalogs, discographies, dissertations, ethnographic recordings, Festschriften, films, iconographies, and videos.
Music Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window
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Provides indexing and abstracts for several hundred international music periodicals from over 20 countries, plus full text for more than 140 of the indexed journals.
Music Periodicals Database covers a range of subject areas in both scholarly and popular music journals ranging from International Journal of Music Education, Ethnomusicology, Jazz Education Journal and Musical Times to Rock and Rap Confidential and Rolling Stone. Articles examine a spectrum of subjects and all aspects of music, including music education, performance, ethnomusicology, musical theater, theory, popular music forms and composition.

Encyclopedias, Handbooks, & Reference Tools

Berg Fashion Library
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Collection of scholarly, multidisciplinary information on all aspects of dress and fashion worldwide, from prehistory to present day.
Content includes: articles from the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion and other reference works, a museum directory, 100+ academic e-books, museum exhibitions, 14,000+ color images from partner institutions, and research and learning tools.
Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America
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Covers the significant events, inventions, and social movements in American history that have affected the way Americans view, prepare, and consume food and drink.
Includes nearly 200 contributors discuss regions, people, ingredients, companies, advertising, historical eras, holidays and festivals, and political, scientific, and economic currents relevant to American cuisine.

Motif-Index of Folk Literature
This database classifies and indexes themes and motifs, characters and events in folk literature: folk-tales, ballads, myths, fables, medieval romances, exempla, fabliaux, jest-books, and local legends. The classification system refers to works in which the various motifs occur.The database corresponds to the print index by Stith Thompson, Motif-index of folk-literature: a classification of narrative elements in folktales, ballads, myths, fables, mediaeval romances, exempla, fabliaux, jest-books, and local legends. Revised and enlarged edition. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1955-1958.
Based on Stith Thompson's 6-volume Motif index by Stith Thompson, this database classifies and indexes themes and motifs, characters and events in folk literature: folk-tales, ballads, myths, fables, medieval romances, exempla, fabliaux, jest-books, and local legends. The classification system refers to works in which the various motifs occur.

The database corresponts to the print:
Thompson, Stith. Motif-index of folk-literature: a classification of narrative elements in folktales, ballads, myths, fables, mediaeval romances, exempla, fabliaux, jest-books, and local legends. Revised and enlarged edition. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1955-1958.

Bibliography and abbreviations for the 1955 revised edition of the Motif-index of folk-literature
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Publication Date: 2005
Explains the sometimes cryptic abbreviations in the bibliography of Stith Thompson's Motif-Index, with IU Library call numbers.

Music Online: The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music
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Comprehensive online encyclopedia devoted to world music research. Contains the full text of the 10-volume print encyclopedia.
First published in 1997, The Garland Encyclopedia has been the preeminent reference work for research in world music. Includes more than 9,000 pages of material and 300 audio recordings, combined with entries by more than 700 expert contributors.
International Encyclopedia of Dance
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Covers the full spectrum of dance: theatrical, ritual, dance-drama, folk, traditional, ethnic, and social dance.
Includes historical and cultural overviews of many nations, along with articles on specific dance forms, music and costumes, performances, biographies of dancers and choreographers. The set features nearly 2,000 alphabetically arranged articles, an index, full cross-references, and more than 2,300 illustrations.

Oxford Reference Library
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Reference resources from the Oxford University Press. Includes English dictionaries and thesauruses, English language reference books, bilingual dictionaries, quotations, maps and illustrations, timelines and subject reference sources.

Primary Sources for Folklore & Ethnomusicology

Music Online: Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries
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Sound files of traditional music from around the world, plus notes, images, video, and lesson plans. Search by culture, genre, instrument, year, etc. Includes access to volumes 1 and 2.
Includes the published recordings owned by the non-profit Smithsonian Folkways Recordings label and the archival audio collections of the legendary Folkways Records, Cook, Dyer-Bennet, Fast Folk, Monitor, Paredon and other labels. Includes music recorded around the African continent for the International Library of African Music (ILAM) at Rhodes University and material collected on the South Asian subcontinent from the Archive Research Centre for Ethnomusicology (ARCE), sponsored by the American Institute for Indian Studies.
Ethnographic Sound Archives Online
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Provides access to historic field recordings from around the world, alongside supporting field notes and ethnographers’ metadata.
Ethnographic Video Online
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Contains classic and contemporary documentaries, previously unpublished footage from anthropologists and ethnographers working in the field, and some feature films. Includes searchable transcripts.
Access is for Volumes 1-4.

Ethnographic Video Online, Vols. I and II: Foundational Films
Includes classic and contemporary ethnographies, documentaries and shorts from every continent.

Ethnographic Video Online, Vol. III: Indigenous Voices
Includes films by indigenous filmmakers. Emphasis is on the human effects of climate change, sustainability, indigenous and local ways of interpreting history, cultural change, and traditional knowledge and storytelling.

Ethnographic Video Online, Vol. IV: Festivals and Archives
Includes titles by contemporary visual anthropologists. Also contains the full catalog of anthropology films from Berkeley Media, formerly known as the University of California’s Extension Center for Media.

eHRAF World Cultures
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Searchable full-text ethnographies on hundreds of ethnic, cultural, religious, and national groups worldwide.
Mass Observation Online
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Field research into the cultural and social life of Britain from 1937 to 1965.
A pioneering social research organisation, Mass Observation was founded in 1937 by anthropologist Tom Harrisson, film-maker Humphrey Jennings and poet Charles Madge. Their aim was to create an 'anthropology of ourselves', and by recruiting a team of observers and a panel of volunteer writers they studied the everyday lives of ordinary people in Britain. This resource covers the original Mass Observation project, the bulk of which was carried out from 1937 until the mid-1950s, offering insight into everyday life in Britain during these transformative years.
Mass Observation Project, 1981-2009
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Consists of the directives (questionnaires) sent out by Mass Observation in the 1980s and the thousands of responses to them from the hundreds of Mass Observers. Addresses such topics as the Falklands War, clothing, attitudes to the USA, reading and television habits, morality and religion, and Britain's relations with Europe.
Launched in 1981 by the University of Sussex as a rebirth of the original 1937 Mass Observation, its founders' aim was to document the social history of Britain by recruiting volunteers to write about their lives and opinions. It is one of the most important sources available for qualitative social data in the UK.

American Broadsides and Ephemera
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Full-color digital facsimiles of 18th- and 19th-century American broadsides, ballads, programs, sermons, etc.
Based on the American Antiquarian Society's landmark collection, American Broadsides and Ephemera offers fully searchable facsimile images of approximately 15,000 broadsides printed between 1820 and 1900 and 15,000 pieces of ephemera printed between 1760 and 1900. The diverse subjects of these broadsides range from contemporary accounts of the Civil War, unusual occurrences and natural disasters to official government proclamations, tax bills and town meeting reports. Featuring many rare items, the pieces of ephemera include clipper ship sailing cards, early trade cards, bill heads, theater and music programs, stock certificates, menus and invitations documenting civic, political and private celebrations.
Folk Song Subject & Master Index
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Indexes the details of 25,000 English-language traditional songs in books, journals, newspapers, manuscript collections, sound recordings, videos, websites, and so on. Also indexes songs that appeared in broadsides and other cheap print publications up to about 1920, and includes music hall songs and songs performed on radio before World War II.
Handrit
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Handrit.provides access to historical Scandinavian manuscripts as well as bibliographic information for manuscripts not yet digitized. Icelandic sagas, German/Nordic mythology and tales of chivalry.
A project of the National and University Library of Iceland and Cornell University Library in association with the Árni Magnússon Institute in Iceland, contains ca. 250,000 manuscript pages and ca. 150,000 printed pages. These images cover the Icelandic family sagas (Íslendingasögur), the sagas of (chiefly Norwegian) kings (konungasögur), chivalric romances (riddarasögur) and the Indigenous Icelandic epic form called rímur, among other texts. Printed editions and translations published before 1901 and housed in the Fiske Icelandic Collection, Cornell University Library complement the manuscripts from the National and University Library of Iceland and the Árni Magnússon Institute in Iceland.
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories
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Full text of letters, diaries, autobiographies, and oral histories of immigrants to America and Canada. Covers 1840 to present, but heaviest focus is on 1920-1980.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
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Searchable full text of letters and diaries of hundreds of North American women, from the 16th century to 1950.

Folklore

Moira Marsh

Periodical Indexes

Encyclopedias, Handbooks, & Reference Tools

Primary Sources for Folklore & Ethnomusicology

Featured Databases

IU Libraries

Folklore

Periodical Indexes

Encyclopedias, Handbooks, & Reference Tools

Primary Sources for Folklore & Ethnomusicology

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Featured Databases

IU Libraries