Dance Pathfinder
Library research guide from the Meyer Library Reference & Government Department

Find Articles and Basic Reference Information
Magazine and journal indexes and other reference databases.

Online Indexes to Articles
Academic Search Premier
Academic Search Premier, designed specifically for academic institutions, is the world's largest scholarly, multi-disciplinary full text database containing full text for more than 4,650 publications, including more than 3,600 peer-reviewed publications. In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for all 8,183 journals in the collection. This scholarly collection offers information in nearly every area of academic study including: computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, ethnic studies, and many more. Academic Search Premier is an enormous collection of the most valuable peer-reviewed full text journals, offering critical information from many sources unique to this database. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles. The majority of full text titles are available in native (searchable) PDF, or scanned-in-color.

America: History and Life
America: History and Life is a complete bibliographic reference to research on the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Published since 1964, the database comprises over 490,000 bibliographic entries for periodicals dating back to 1954, providing an incomparable research tool for students and researchers of U.S. and Canadian history. This extensive database covers over 1,700 journals published worldwide. In addition to covering all key English-language historical journals, America: History and Life coverage includes selected historical journals from major countries, state and local history journals, and a targeted selection of hundreds of journals in the social sciences and humanities. Over 90% of the articles included are published in English-language journals. In addition to articles, each year America: History and Life includes approximately 6,000 citations of book and media reviews from a selection of over one hundred key journals in U.S. and Canadian history and related fields. The database also includes citations to abstracts of dissertations published in these areas. In 2006, America: History and Life began adding retrospective coverage for the most important historical journals in JSTOR. By project's end, coverage for these journals will extend back to the late-19th century.

Anthropological Index Online
The Anthropological Index Online is based on the journal holdings of the Anthropology Library at the British Museum (Museum of Mankind) which receives periodicals in all branches of anthropology from academic institutions and publishers around the world. The online index includes all entries from the print index and is updated regularly. During 2000 and early 2001, a retrospective conversion was undertaken which added some 100,000 records going back to 1957. These were originally published in paper as volumes 1-22 of the Anthropological Index.

Art Full Text
Art Full Text indexes and abstracts 425 periodicals dating back to 1984, with full text for 125 periodicals beginning in 1997. In addition to standard areas such as art history, folk art, graphic arts, painting, sculpture, architecture, and pottery, there is also detailed coverage in advertising art, archaeology, costume, film, and textiles. Coverage includes Latin American, Canadian, Asian and other non-Western art, new artists, contemporary art, exhibition reviews, and feminist criticism.

ArticleFirst (Available at the Meyer Library reference desk).
This database is produced by the Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC) and is located on FirstSearch. It gives citations to articles from the contents pages of journals. Coverage is from 1990 to present and includes articles from over 16, 000 general topic sources, including business, humanities, medicine, popular culture, science, social science, and technology. Each record describes the source for one article from a journal or magazine and provides a list of libraries that have the journal title.

Arts and Humanities Search (AHSearch) (Available at the Meyer Library reference desk).
Indexes the world's leading arts and humanities journals. Indexes selected articles from social science and science journals; indexes articles, bibliographies, editorials, letters, reviews, and more.

ATLA Religion
The ATLA Religion Database is a major research tool for the study of religion. It is the premier index to journal articles, book reviews, and collections of essays in all fields of religion, indexing and abstracting over 1,500 sources annually. The more than 1,300,000 records in ATLA Religion Database include citations to journal articles, essays from multi-author works, and book reviews. ATLA's indexing of multi-author works, such as Festschriften and conference proceedings, is unique among religion databases. ATLA Religion, published by the American Theological Library Association (ATLA), is the online version of the publisher's three print indexes: Religion Index One (RIO), Religion Index Two (RIT), and Index to Book Reviews in Religion (IBRR). Coverage is from 1949 to the present.

ECO - Electronic Collections Online (Available at the Meyer Library reference desk).
The OCLC Electronic Collections Online (ECO) database is a collection of scholarly journals, with over 5,400 sources. It includes bibliographic information for all journals, and lets you view abstracts and full-text articles from journals to which Missouri State subscribes. ECO is multi-disciplinary in its subject areas, and coverage extends from 1995 to present.

Education Full Text
Education Full Text, produced by The H.W. Wilson Company, is a bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts nearly 750 periodicals as far back as 1983, over 450 of which are peer-reviewed. Full-text coverage of articles from over 350 journals ranges as far back as 1996. English-language books relating to education published in 1995 or later are also indexed. Abstracting coverage begins with January 1994. Abstracts range from 50 to 300 words and describe the content and scope of the source documents. Subject areas indexed include: Adult Education, Arts, Athletics, Comparative Education, Competency-based Education, Computers in Education, Continuing Education, Educational Technology, Elementary Education, Government Funding, Higher Education, Instructional Media, Language Arts, Library Science, Literacy Standards, Multicultural/Ethnic Education, Parent-Teacher Relations, Prayer in Public Schools, Preschool Education, Religious Education, School Administration, Science and Mathematics, Secondary Education, Special Education, Student Counseling, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluation, Teaching Methods, and Vocational Education. The paper version of this index covers the field back to 1929, much further than any of the current on-line educational indexes.

eHRAF World Cultures
The eHRAF Collection of Ethnography is a cross-cultural database for disciplines with an interest in cultural diversity. eHRAF contains over 350,000 pages of information on all aspects of cultural and social life with diverse topics ranging from religious beliefs, bringing up children, causes and cures of diseases, to economic and political behavior. Cultures included are mostly immigrant groups, Native North Americans, and other ethnic groups from around the world. The Human Relations Area Files, Inc. (HRAF) is an internationally recognized organization in the field of cross-cultural anthropology. These materials are relevant to the various social science disciplines as well as the humanities and health sciences. The mission of HRAF is to encourage and facilitate worldwide comparative studies of human behavior, society, and culture. Founded in 1949 at Yale University, HRAF is a financially autonomous research agency of Yale.

ERIC
ERIC is the research database and information system for the field of education. It is produced by the Educational Resources Information Center. Established in 1966, ERIC is supported by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement and is administered by the National Library of Education (NLE). The database contains annotated references to educational materials and reports, called ERIC Documents, and to articles published in professional magazines and research journals. Subject areas indexed include: adult, career, and vocational education; assessment and evaluation; disabilities and gifted education; educational management; elementary and early childhood education; higher education and community colleges; information and technology; language and linguistics; reading and communication; teacher and teacher education; and urban education.

Gender Studies Database
The Gender Studies Database (GSD) combines NISC's popular Women's Studies International, Men's Studies and Sexual Diversity Studies databases with relevant contributions from the Child Development & Adolescent Studies as well as Family & Society Studies Worldwide databases. GSD covers the spectrum of gender engaged scholarship inside and outside academia. Several thousand links to freely available and indexed full-text articles and documents on the Web are available. Several hundred links provide access to carefully selected websites. This database includes more than 696,750 records with coverage spanning from 1972 and earlier to present.

Grove Music Online
Grove Music Online, the "cornerstone" of Oxford Music Online, is an integrated music resource on the web, including the full text of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd. ed., 2001), the New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992 ed.), and the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (2nd. ed., 2002), "as well as all subsequent updates and emendations, including 50,000 signed articles and 28,000 biographies contributed by over 6,000 scholars from around the world." Our subscription to Grove Music Online "also includes the Oxford Companion to Music (2002 ed.), which offers more than 8,000 articles on composers, performers, conductors, individual works, instruments and notation, forms and genres" and the Oxford Dictionary of Music (2nd. rev. ed., 2006) which "will similarly supplement Grove's more extensive coverage with content geared toward undergraduates and general users." Articles that have been updated since their appearance in print are date-stamped in the upper right corner of the screen. Grove Music Online will be updated annually to ensure it remains the most up to date music reference work on the Internet. Key features are: full-text searching (across all five titles above) with advanced capabilities; over 3000 links to related sites, including sound archives and illustrations; and annual updates by the Grove editorial advisory board.

Historical Abstracts
Historical Abstracts provides coverage of the published scholarly research on the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada, which are covered in America: History and Life). This database contains annotated references to journal articles and other publications on world history, military history, women's history, history of education, and more - essential for libraries supporting upper-division and graduate research. The database contains over half a million citation entries from more than 1,700 periodicals dating from 1954 to the present. In addition, Historical Abstracts includes citations to historical books in the field and citations to abstracts of dissertations completed worldwide of particular interest for historical research. In 2006, Historical Abstracts began adding retrospective coverage for the most important historical journals in JSTOR. By project's end, coverage for these journals will extend back to the late-19th century.

JSTOR
Our JSTOR database offers two multidisciplinary collections: 1) Arts & Sciences I-IV is an umbrella journal collection containing four sub-units, but which is searched as one collection. Its contents are: 119 core journals in economics, history, political science, and sociology, mathematics, and statistics; 124 journals in archaeology, classics, and Latin American, African, Slavic, and Middle Eastern Studies; 150 journals in language, literature, theatre, music, art, and architecture; and, 112 journals in education, management, marketing, political science, and public administration; 2) Biological Sciences, which is a collection of 98 journals in science fields such as conservation, plant sciences, cell biology and zoology. One of the distinct characteristics of JSTOR is that its coverage is "rolling", i.e., all of the journals provide full text of articles beginning with volume 1 of each title up to about the past three to five years. The Libraries have individual subscriptions to about 80% of these titles to provide coverage of current issues of most of the journals.

LexisNexis Academic
LexisNexis Academic is an interdisciplinary, full-text database of several thousand news, business, legal, and biographical sources. The "news" section includes over 350 newspapers, 300 magazines and journals, 600 newsletters, wire services, transcripts of broadcasts, and nearly 300 college/university papers. "Business" sources include business and financial news, U.S. and international company financial information from government or private sources, market research, industry reports, and actual SEC filings. "Legal" includes primary source materials such as case law, statutes, and regulations, including Shepard's citations for all U.S. Supreme Court cases back to 1789, as well as all federal and state courts. It also includes law review articles from over 500 publications, and patents from 1971 forward. "People" includes biographical information for persons, both alive and deceased. In addition to news, business, legal and biographical information, LexisNexis Academic provides access to medical information, including medical news and medical & health journals. Abstracts from medical journals dating to 1966 are provided in the National Library of Medicine's Medline database. Country information on over 190 countries, with business and political risk analysis, as well as the World Almanac are other selected resources found in this database.

MasterFILE Premier
"Designed specifically for public libraries, MasterFILE Premier provides full text for more than 1,750 general periodicals covering general reference, business, health, education, general science, multicultural issues and much more. In addition to the full text, this database provides indexing and abstracts for more than 2,400 titles. This database features: 5,000 full text Magill Book Reviews, nearly 500 full text reference books including the World Almanac & Book of Facts; full text from 86,019 biographies, 105,787 full text primary source documents, American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Edition and an Image Collection of 293,480 photos, maps and flags."

MLA International Bibliography
The MLA International Bibliography, produced by the Modern Language Association, consists of citations and bibliographic records pertaining to literature, language, linguistics, and folklore. The MLA International Bibliography provides access to scholarly research in more than 4,400 journals and series and 1,000 book publishers. It also covers relevant monographs, working papers, proceedings, bibliographies, and other formats. The MLA Bibliography includes coverage from 1926 to the present.

Music Index
Produced by Harmonie Park Press, Music Index Online coverage spans from 1976 to the present and contains surveyed data from 775 international music periodicals from over 40 countries, with English translations from 22 languages. Some backfile data from the period 1962-1975 is also included. Topics concerned with every aspect of the classical and popular world of music are carefully categorized and organized according to the framework of an internal subject classification system. A broad range of subjects are indexed, covering musicological or organological topics, plus book reviews, record reviews, first performances, and obituaries.

Naxos Music Library
The Naxos Music Library online service allows access to approximately 85,000 musical selections, primarily "classical" music, but also some jazz and world music. The selections, when chosen, will play on most Internet computers through streaming technology. The service also include biographical information on artists and composers, performance notes, and a variety of search options.

Oxford Reference Online (5 user limit)
Oxford Reference Online contains over 1.3 million entries, including definitions, facts, figures, people, places, sayings, and dates from over 170 of Oxford University Press's central English and bilingual dictionaries, usage, quotations, and subject reference books. These are all combined in this online service to create one integrated and searchable e-reference book collection. Subjects covered include art and architecture, bilingual dictionaries, biological sciences, classics, computing, earth and environmental sciences, economics and business, English dictionaries and thesauri, English language reference, food and drink, history, law, literature, medicine, military history, mythology and folklore, names and places, performing arts, physical sciences and mathematics, politics and social sciences, quotations, religion and philosophy, and science. A complete list of subjects and books covered by Oxford Reference Online is available.

PapersFirst (Available at the Meyer Library reference desk).
PapersFirst, from OCLC, is an index of papers presented at conferences worldwide. It covers every published congress, symposium, conference, exposition, workshop and meeting received by the British Library Document Supply Centre. Coverage is 1993 to the present, and the database is updated twice a month.

ProceedingsFirst (Available at the Meyer Library reference desk).
Proceedings is an OCLC index of worldwide conference proceedings. The database covers every published congress, symposium, conference, exposition, workshop and meeting received by The British Library Document Supply Centre and contains in each record a list of the papers presented at each conference. The Proceedings database contains over 169,000 records and includes coverage from 1993 to the present.

Project Muse
Project Muse provides access to 383 searchable full text journals in a broad range of disciplines, particularly in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, and has significant strengths in literature, history, political science and sociology. Retrospective full text access typically ranges back to 2000.

PsycINFO
PsycINFO, from the American Psychological Association (APA), contains more than 2 million citations and summaries of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations, all in psychology and related disciplines, dating as far back as the 1800s. Ninety-seven percent of the covered material is peer-reviewed. Subjects include the field of psychology and psychological aspects of related disciplines, such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, anthropology, business, and law. Journal coverage, spanning 1887-present, includes international material selected from nearly 2,000 periodicals in over 25 language. Current chapter and book coverage includes worldwide English-language material published from 1987 to the present. Over 55,000 references are added annually through regular updates.

Readers' Guide Retrospective, 1890-1982 (5 user limit)
Reader’s Guide Retrospective contains more than 3 million citations to articles in 375 general interest periodicals published between 1890-1982, making it an ideal tool for primary and secondary source material ranging from the dawn of the 20th century through two world wars and the Great Depression up to the 1980’s. A large number of the magazines indexed by the Reader’s Guide Retrospective are held by Meyer Library in print or microformat. This is the online version of the well-known and respected Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature from H.W. Wilson up to 1982.

RILM Abstracts of Music Literature (1 user limit)
Compiled by the Repertoire International de Litterature Musicale, RILM Abstracts of Music Literature is the world's largest, continuously updated bibliography of music literature providing broad international coverage including records in over 100 languages from 5,200 journals. Containing nearly 400,000 entries, RILM now has direct EBSCO links to 370 full text sources in Academic Search Premier. Approximately 30,000 new records are added every year, covering all document types: articles, books, bibliographies, catalogues, dissertations, Festschriften, iconographies, critical commentaries to complete works, ethnographic recordings, conference proceedings, electronic resources, reviews, and more. The RILM Abstracts of Music Literature includes coverage from 1967 to the present.

SPORTDiscus
SPORTDiscus, provided by the Sport Information Resource Centre (SIRC), is a comprehensive, bibliographic database covering sport, physical fitness, exercise, sports medicine, sports science, physical education, kinesiology, coaching, training, sport administration, officiating, sport law & legislation, college & university sport, disabled persons, facility design & management, intramural & school sport, doping, health, health education, biomechanics, movement science, injury prevention rehabilitation, physical therapy, nutrition, exercise physiology, sport & exercise psychology, recreation, leisure studies, tourism, allied health, occupational health & therapy, public health and more. Indexed are articles from more than 2,000 sport-related journals and magazines, monographs, book chapters, conference proceedings, theses, video and audio tapes, and book reviews. This database contains over 650,000 records with journal and monograph coverage going back to 1800, including bibliographic coverage for over 20,000 dissertations and theses and reference to articles in 60 different languages.

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Print Indexes in the Meyer Library Reference Collection
The title links here will show you the SWAN library catalog record which gives the Meyer Library holdings of the print title.

Completed research in health, physical education, recreation and dance
MSU Meyer Ref.  GV 1 .Z1 C66

Index to dance periodicals
MSU Meyer Ref. GV 1594 .Z1 I53 1991

Physical education index
MSU Meyer Ref.  GV 201 .P534

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General/All Purpose Indexes & Full Text Databases:
The following indexes and databases do not provide the in-depth coverage for studying Dance as the indexes above. They do cover a variety of subjects and topics across multiple disciplines and provide good general indexing of magazines, newspapers, and core academic journals. In addition they provide full text articles from many of the sources cited.

EBSCOhost. Enter EBSCOhost Web and select the appropriate database for your research.
FirstSearch. Either jump to the database you need to search, or under Databases on the menu bar to the left click “List All” and select the appropriate database for your research.
LexisNexis Academic. Full-text newspapers! Also includes business, legal research, and reference areas.
Oxford Reference Online. An e-reference book collection of over 100 of Oxford University Press’s central English and bilingual dictionaries, usage, quotations, and subject reference books.
CQ Researcher, FACTS.com, SIRS Researcher, JSTOR, Project Muse

Selected Journals in the Library
The title links will take you to TDNet which is the Libraries' tool for locating journals regardless of their format—electronic, print, or microform. Once in TDNet, click on the links to locate journals online, or click on the check box to locate journals in print and microform. This is NOT a complete list of all relevant journals in the Missouri State University Libraries’ collection for this field. If you are looking for a particular title, then use TDNet as your starting point.

Ballet Review

Cord Newsletter Congress on Research in Dance

Dance Chronicle

Dance Magazine

Dance Research Journal

Entertainment design (continues TCI: the business of entertainment technology & design magazine)

Theatre Design & Technology (TD&T):  Journal of the U.S. Institute for Theatre Technology

Recent Books in the Meyer Library Collection
The title links will take you into SWAN, the Missouri State University Libraries catalog, to view publishing information and complete citation. The citation record will also display the Library of Congress call number used to arrange many of the books in this subject area. You can use the call number to browse the shelf for similar materials.

Reference Books at Meyer Library
The title links will take you into SWAN, the Missouri State University Libraries catalog, to view publishing information and obtain the Library of Congress call number used by Meyer Library to arrange reference materials. Reference materials are non-circulating items.

Biographical dictionary of dance
MSU Meyer Ref GV 1785 .A1 C58

Complete book of ballets
MSU Meyer Ref GV 1787 .B35 1941

Contemporary authors:  permanent series
MSU Meyer Ref. PN 771 .C61x

Contemporary authors:  first revision
MSU Meyer Ref. PN 771 .C6

Contemporary authors:  new revision series
MSU Meyer Ref.  PN 771 .C612x

Contemporary theatre, film & television
MSU Meyer Ref. PN 2285 .C58

Dance words
MSU Meyer Ref. GV 1585 .P74x 1995

Dancer’s resource
MSU Meyer Ref.  GV 1589.J65 1999

Dictionary of literary biography
MSU Meyer Ref. PN 41 .D45x

International dictionary of ballet
MSU Meyer Ref. GV1585. I57 1993

International encyclopedia of dance
MSU Meyer Ref. GV 1585 .I586 1998

McGraw-Hill encyclopedia of world drama
MSU Meyer Ref.  PN 1625 .M3

Research in dance:  a guide to resources
MSU Meyer Ref. GV1594 .Z1 B67 1994

World encyclopedia of contemporary theatre
MSU Meyer Ref. PN 1861 .W67x 1994

Associations
Organizations of experts, policy makers, and researchers.

General Directory
Scholarly Societies Project from the University of Waterloo Library
http://www.scholarly-societies.org/

American College Dance Festival Association
http://fsu.edu/~acdfa

American Dance Festival
http://americandancefestival.org

Artslynx International Dance Resources
http://www.artslynx.org/dance/index.htm

Congress on Research in Dance
http://cordance.org

Cross-Cultural Dance Resources
http://www.ccdr.org

Dance Notation Bureau
http://dancenotation.org

Dance/USA
http://www.danceusa.org

International Council of Kinetography Laban/Labanotation
http://www.ickl.org

Laban/Bartenieff Institute for Movement Studies
http://www.limsonline.org

National Dance Association
http://www.aahperd.org/nda

United States Amateur Ballroom Dancers Association
http://www.usabda.org

Web Sites
Selected web directories to sources and a variety of information on the Internet.

Critical Dance
http://www.ballet-dance.com/links/

CyberDance Ballet on the Net
http://www.cyberdance.org/

Dance Links
http://dancer.com/dance-links/

Missouri State University Department of Theatre and Dance
http://www.theatreanddance.missouristate.edu/

Theater Associations Resources (for technical theatre to support dance performances)
http://www.business.com/directory/media_and_entertainment/theater/associations

compiled by Edward DeLong | Meyer Library
MSU Libraries | Missouri State University | Updated: July 2007