.Music Subject Guide

Oxford Music Online is the best, most comprehensive site for research on musicians and musical topics. Draws together and updates several multi-volume Grove Dictionary titles. These titles, with call numbers for the Hamersly Library Reference collection, are: 

• The New Grove dictionary of music and musicians ML 100 .N48 2001
• The New Grove dictionary of jazz ML102.J3 N48 2001
• The Norton-Grove dictionary of women composers ML105 .N66 1994
• The New Grove dictionary of opera ML102.O6 N5 1992
• The Grove dictionary of American music, 2nd ed. In process of being added to OMO; about 60% complete. Hamersly does not own 2nd ed. See below for 1st ed
• The Grove dictionary of musical instruments, 2nd ed. In process of being added to OMO, about 30% complete. Hamersly does not own 2nd ed. See below for 1st ed.

Above the search results from Grove, be sure to also click the provided links to Oxford titles. Example:
 

In Primo or Worldcat, search for the person's name in the subject field and the word "biography."

For big-picture histories of a topic, simply combine the keyword with "history"

But some texts cover a distinct period rather than the overall history, and the subject heading will reflect that focus.