QUESTION: I'm looking for a piece of music, but I know only the last name of the composer.
How do I find what I need? ANSWER: There are several ways to find the first name of your composer:
Try scanning down the right side of the screen to see how many entries are under a specific
last name. Often a composer will have lots of entries.
LIMIT your search by WHERE THE ITEM IS LOCATED. Choose MUSIC LIBRARY.
Look up your composer in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians or Grove Music Online to find the first
name.
QUESTION: I'm searching for music by a Russian composer. His name is spelled differently in the New Grove
Dictionary than it is in the online catalog. Why? ANSWER: The New Grove Dictionary uses a different transliteration system for Russian than does the Library of Congress. Occasionally names will be spelled differently. Sad but true. There is usually a cross reference in the catalog
from other spellings and transliterations of the name.
QUESTION: I'm looking for a book by Leonard Bernstein, but I forget the title. I don't want to look through
the more than 300 entries under "Bernstein", most for scores and recordings, to find my book. What do I do? ANSWER: Try limiting your result by MATERIAL TYPE. Then choose BOOK/SERIAL. You'll get only 10 or so results, which will be easier to look through.
QUESTION: I'm trying to find the score for a saxophone sonata by Telemann. He didn't originally write the sonata for saxophone, of course, but I don't know if it was originally written for flute, oboe, violin, or something else. I know the uniform title will include only the original instrumentation. How do I find this score? ANSWER: At this point in your search there's no way to know what the original instrumentation was, so it's time to get creative with your searching. Search for Telemann as an author, and then LIMIT your search by WORDS IN THE SUBJECT, "saxophone." Your result will pull up the three or so Telemann works in our catalog that have been arranged for saxophone.
