Because your research projects will be approached from a number of different angles, the databases listed below represent a variety of disciplines. When you identify items of interest, try using the “FIND IT” link to help you get your hand on the cited item or search Tripod under "title" or "journal title" to see if the items are held within the Tri-Colleges. If something you need is not available on Swarthmore’s campus then it can be requested through our interlibrary loan services.
Subject Portal » Dance » Course Guides »
DANC 002 : World Dance Forms (SC)
Exploring:
International encyclopedia of dance
Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press, 1998.
This six-volume set is a good starting point for dance research with great articles and bibliographies. Try browsing by country or dance form. The index is in volume 6.
The JVC video anthology of world music and dance
Publisher: [Tokyo] : JVC, Victor Company of Japan [1990]
Production: Produced in collaboration with the National Museum of Ethnology (Osaka) and Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings.
You may want to browse in the 9 guide books to this set of 30 DVDs: v.1. Introduction -- v.2. East Asia -- v.3. Southeast Asia -- v.4. South Asia -- v.5. Middle East & Africa -- v.6. Soviet Union -- v.7. Europe -- v.8. Americas -- v.9. Oceania.
World Dance Encyclopedia
Created by World Arts West, presenter of San Francisco's Ethnic Dance Fesitval.
World Portals and Ethnic Dance Forms
Created by Artslynx.org.
Google Scholar, Advanced Search
A good way to explore. Notice that some of your search results offer the "Find it @ Swarhtmore" link.
Finding Videos & Books:
TRIPOD (Tri-College Library Catalog)
Use Tripod (shared with Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges) to find recorded performances of the works you want to explore and to find books and essays on your topic. Here are some searching hints:
- Keyword Searches: Start with words used to describe your topic. Try a variety of words and include the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT to explore many possibilities.
- Subject Headings Searches: Tripod uses Library of Congress subject headings. They are not always intuitive. For example the official term for movies or films is "motion pictures". Instead of starting with a subject heading search you may want to start with a keyword search. Browse through the list of results until you find something that looks relevant to your research. Click on the link and look through the description of the item to find "official" library terminology for the topic. You can then click on the links in Tripod labeled, "Subject". You might find the following subject searches useful:
dance [country]
folk dancing [country]
[name of dance style]
- Limiting Searches: You can limit searches in two ways. Before you begin searching you can choose a specialized search such as "Videos/DVDs". Also, after getting search results you can click on the "limit/sort search" button or the "modify search" button to refine your results.
- Tri-Co Requesting: Use the "Request" button to have materials delivered to Swarthmore from Bryn Mawr or Haverford.
New York Public Library Dance Collection Catalog
The NYPL Dance Catalog lists works about all forms of dance, from all cultures, in print and other media. It includes materials in many languages and serves as an index to an international range of dance writings. The New York Public Library's catalog can help you identify materials that, if not owned in the Tri-Colleges, can be requested through interlibrary loan.
WorldCat
This is a gigantic catalog of materials owned by libraries all over the world including videos, books, and websites. WorldCat will help you identify materials that, if not owned in the Tri-Colleges, can be requested through interlibrary loan.
Finding Journal Articles:
ProQuest Research Library
Provider: ProQuest
Provides citations and full-text magazine and journal articles in a wide variety of disciplines, both scholarly and popular in scope. Covers 1971-present.
JSTOR
Provides full-text and page images from many of the top journals in most academic disciplines. Coverage is from the inception of the journal through three to five years ago.
International index to the performing arts
Publisher: [Alexandria, Va.] : Chadwyck-Healey, Inc.,
Provides abstracts and full-text to journal articles. Covers a broad spectrum of the arts and entertainment industry including dance, film, television, theater, opera, and broadcasting. Covers 1864-present.
Arts & humanities citation index
Provider: ISI
Multidisciplinary database covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities with selected, relevant items from major science and social science journals. Covers 1975- present.
RILM abstracts of music literature
Provider: CSA
Covers material published in music and various other fields as they relate to music. Records appear in over a hundred languages. The majority of citations include abstracts. Articles, books, bibliographies, catalogues, conference proceedings, discographies, dissertations, Festschriften, films, and videos are all covered by RILM. Concert reviews, recording notes, and pedagogical manuals if they are of scholarly interest.
ATLA religion database + ATLAS
Provider: SilverPlatter
Provides online access to the entire core collection of more than fifty significant scholarly journals in the field of religion. Also provides citation information for journal articles, book reviews and essays for over 600 journals in the fields of religion and theology. Covers 1949-present.
Anthropology plus
Provides abstracts on journal articles, reports, commentaries and obituaries in many fields including social, cultural, physical, biological and linguistic anthropology; archaeology, ethnology, folklore and interdisciplinary studies. Covers the late 19th century-present.
Getting Materials not at Swarthmore:
If something you need is not available on Swarthmore’s campus then it can be requested through our Tri-College Borrowing and Interlibrary Loan services.
Evaluating Sources:
Scholarly Journals vs. Popular Magazine Articles (USTA Library)
This page compares the two types of publications on several levels, including language, structure of articles, editorial procedures, and credits.
Evaluating Information Found on the Internet (Johns Hopkins University Library)
Discusses the criteria by which scholars in most fields evaluate print information, and shows how the same criteria can be used to assess information found on the Internet.
Citing Sources:
Guidelines for style and the documentation of sources for scholarly papers in music and dance follow The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. The manual is not available online but thorough explanations can be found in the Chicago/Turabian Documentation section of the UW-Madison Writing Center website. Citing the notes that accompany sound recordings and scores can be tricky. Williams College has a good citation guide for non-book formats.