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Finding music, sounds and images

Sofia lists recordings on audio-cassettes, vinyl and CD. Use Advanced Search to identify these recordings. For example, if you want a list of recordings on accents and dialects, type accent* or dialect* in one of the search boxes. In the material type box, hold the Ctrl key and select Cassettes, CD (Spoken) and Vinyl record. Here are the results from this search. A collection of note: Complete Arkangel Shakespeare

The catalogue lists music recordings on audio-cassettes, vinyl and CD, as well as streaming formats. You can search by title or by performer/composer as an author. In the set of results, under Format, select Music Recording.

ARTstor is a database of more than 500,000 digital images and associated catalog data. ARTstor covers many time periods and cultures, and documents the fields of architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design, as well as many other forms of visual culture. Users can search, view, and download images.

North American Theatre Online (NATO) is a comprehensive reference work covering all aspects of the Canadian and American Theatre, from colonial times to the present. It includes some 10,500 images, playbills, postcards, scrapbooks and other resources.

Oxford Art Online provides cross-searchable access to:

  • Grove Art Online --Provides online access to the entire text of the 34 volume Dictionary of Art, published in 1996. The online version includes new and revised entries added since 1996. It includes over 45,000 signed articles written and peer reviewed by scholars and specialists covering the visual arts from prehistory to the present. The text, as well as over 130,000 images, can be searched by artist's name, title of work, and keyword.
  • The Oxford Companion to Western Art
  • The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics
  • The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms

Literature Criticism Online is a a reference work that begins with an introductory critical biography, followed by the full text or selections of full text of essays and articles re-published within the reference work.

  • Good resource for photographs

From Alexander Street Press, Classical Music Library is a streaming online music database, featuring classical music from over 32 labels. It includes a reference section with biographies, a glossary, images, and MIDI files of tens of thousands of licensed recordings that users can listen to over the Internet through headphones.

From Alexander Street Press, Jazz Music Library is the most comprehensive collection of jazz recordings available online covering thousands of artists, ensembles, albums, and genres, from all over the world, from the beginnings of jazz to today.

Naxos Music Library provides a comprehensive collection of classical music with over 100,000 recordings that include the complete catalogues of BIS, Chandos, CPO, Hnssler, Hungaroton, Marco Polo, Naxos and selected titles of other leading independent labels, with more labels being added from time to time.

Provided by Alexander Street Press, Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries 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. The collection includes more than 35,000 individual tracks of music, spoken word, and natural and human-made sounds you can listen to on the Internet.


Naxos Music Library. Jazz is a comprehensive collection of Jazz music that offer close to 20,000 tracks of jazz from over 1,850 albums and more than 500 jazz artists. Naxos Music Library Jazz comprises Naxos Jazz and the 22 labels of Fantasy Jazz along with Prophone and Proprius.

The BBC Sound FX Library is a collection of 60 audio CDs.

The Valentino Sound Effects Library is a collection of 50 audio CDs.

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