Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
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Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
This database contains the full text of the 32-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica (both Micropaedia and Macropaedia); their annual The Britannica Book of the Year; and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed.), which includes related reference works such as a thesaurus, foreign word and phrase dictionary, and twenty-one tables. An Internet Guide links to web sites chosen by Britannica editors. There are limited illustrations.
See QuickGuide.
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Encyclopedia of Music in Canada
This electronic version of the second edition of The Encyclopedia of Music in Canada (1992) is designed to enable musicians, music scholars, students, and music lovers globally to have immediate access to information about music in Canada. It is also hoped that the electronic edition of EMC will reflect Canadian music's richness and diversity. The site is presented in both English and French.
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Grove Dictionary of Art (1999)
This database contains the full text of the original 34 volume Dictionary of Art (1996), with ongoing revisions and updates. The searchable articles cover all aspects of the visual arts (painting, sculpture, graphics, contemporary art forms such as performance and installation, architecture, decorative arts, and photography) from prehistory to the present. History of film making is excluded. In addition, this resource provides access to the Bridgeman Art Library of 35,000 online images and links to other external websites containing images.
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Grove Music Online
Grove Music Online comprises the full text of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London, 2001), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, edited by Stanley Sadie (London, 1992), and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, second edition, edited by Barry Kernfeld (London, 2002). Grove Music Online also contains a number of articles have been added or updated since the latest print editions.
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Merriam-Webster OnLine
Merriam-Webster OnLine provides free access to the company's Collegiate Dictionary (Eleventh Edition), Thesaurus, Medial Dictionary, and Spanish-English Dictionary. Other reference materials are available on a subscription basis.
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Music Sack
The Music Sack is a primarily an index of writings about people involved in all types of music. The database currently contains approximately 15 million entries pertaining to about one million people.
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MusicWeb
MusicWeb, part of the ClassicalLink portal, presents several music dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference books in full text.
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OED Online (Oxford English Dictionary)
The OED Online contains the complete contents of the 20-volume Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary and three Additions volumes published from 1993-97. It also includes quarterly releases of work in progress from the complete revision of the OED which is currently underway. Each of the 616,000 entries contains the etymology, definition, part of speech, date of origination, pronunciation, cross-references, and quotations.
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Pronouncing Dictionary of Music and Musicians
This site from WOI Radio Group at Iowa State offers phonetic pronunciations for a variety of non-English musical terms, titles, and names. The dictionary comprises 26 downloadable PDF files, one for each letter of the alphabet.
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Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary
This dictionary of musical terms includes an audio pronunciation for each entry, as well as some score, audio, and video examples.
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xreferplus
xreferplus is an online library of 162 reference books. (UW has access to 100 of these titles.) xreferplus includes encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri and books of quotations, not to mention a range of subject-specific titles covering everything from art to accountancy and literature to law. For musicians, xreferplus offers The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music, and The Harvard Dictionary of Music.