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A Guide To...Music

Types and Terms

"Monographs and Proceedings and Festschriften, oh my"

You've been using secondary literature as your main sources to write papers since elementary school. The world of academic publishing has a wide variety of terms to describe these publications, and it can be helpful to distinguish between them. The following are terms you will see and should become familiar with:

Monograph A more specific term than book, referring specifically to a publication that is a complete whole, primarily prose, and usually on a single topic, as opposed to serials or reference books.
Serial / Periodical A broader term indicating any publication that is ongoing. More specific types would be: magazine, journal, annual, yearbook, etc. (Though essentially the same, "serial" tends to be used by libraries, and "periodical" by publishers)
   
Festschrift A book published in honor of an individual, usually containing essays related to their area of research/contribution. 
Symposium / Conference Proceedings Published volume of papers from a particular conference, symposium, or other scholarly event. Sometimes they have been revised, often they are printed as presented. 
Special / Thematic / Separate Issue of Periodical A periodical issue that is devoted to a single topic or is written by a single author. May be part of the normal publication or may be published separately as a book. These can be tricky as each one is different. 
   
Reprint Literally just a reprinting of a previously published item. May or may not be by the same publisher, and may or may not indicate how it was originally published. Be careful to distinguish reprints from revised editions.
Facsimile An exact copy of something. Often used to describe copies of manuscripts or other primary sources. Often will contain commentary, translation, transcription, or other notes. For older books (published before 1800), many times it is published as a "facsimile" edition, but if it contains no new material it is simply a reprint. 
Offprint A part of a larger publication published separately. An essay may be published in a collection, and then printed on its own as a small booklet. For music, it is commonly seen with Monuments and Complete Editions: the individual pieces, performance parts, and study scores are offprints from the large, bound volumes.
Preprint Anything released prior to official publication. Sometimes it contains all the same formatting and page numbers from the publisher, but in other cases it is simply basic formatted text. An item can be both a preprint and an offprint.

Where to Search?

Index/Database Comparison
  CrossSearch RILM ProQuest Music (IIMP) JSTOR
Type:

Aggregated search engine
(Discovery layer)
(Federated search)

 Abstract & Index database
(A & I)		 Abstract & Index database
plus periodical archive		 Archival journal platform
Content: All HC subscribed
and owned resources		 Scholarly music resources
(journals, books, dissertations, etc.)		 Music periodicals,
including scholarly journals,
trade publications, and magazines		 Scholarly journals
in all subjects
Search: Metadata Metadata and abstracts Metadata and full-text Metadata and full-text
Coverage: Variable Primarily US/Europe
All languages
c. 1960-		 US/Europe
English only
Primarily c. 1970-
(some titles earlier)		 US/Europe
Primarily English
Primarily 20th cty