Music-Related Databases Guide

The Institute for Composer Diversity, winner of the 2018 ASCAP Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Media/Internet Award and housed at the State University of New York at Fredonia, is dedicated to the celebration, education, and advocacy of music created by composers from historically underrepresented groups through database resources and programming analysis. Their award-winning Composer Diversity Database allows users to discover over 4000 composers of historically underrepresented genders, racial, ethnic, and cultural heritages, and sexual orientations. You can search by composer name, living or deceased, common large and small ensemble genres, racial, ethnic, or cultural demographics, and by location (city, state, and country).

UBorrow searches 15+ major research libraries (Big Ten Academic Alliance institutions). Through UBorrow, you can borrow books, scores, CDs, DVDs, and more. Items requested through UBorrow usually arrive within a week, and may be kept for sixteen weeks with one four-week renewal (though media may have a different loan period).

Find books, scores, recordings, magazines, journals, movies, and more in the University of Minnesota Libraries catalog.

Anyone may access music-related materials like recordings and scores through the University Libraries - you don't need to be a music major! Any member of the campus community can borrow the Music Library's books, scores, journals, and recordings, and digital resources like streaming audio and video, and digital scores are available to use on- and off-campus with a UMN Internet ID and password. All of our materials are also available to our wider community of the general public for in-library use when you visit the Music Library in person, and non-UMN users can borrow many of our books, scores, and recordings via Interlibrary Loan through a local public library branch. The tabs on the right side of this guide feature information and links to a number of resources, and instructions on how you can get started with using them.