Overview

JSTOR is a great place to locate articles on music topics, especially for interdisciplinary research. JSTOR is also an excellent resource for finding primary resources and images, such as artworks, maps, and photographs, which are searchable in the All Content box or through targeted searching within the Images tab in the database.

Type of Database

Collection of a variety of types of resources accessible through the search portal.

Resources Included

Journals, books, images (Artstor), open community collections (digital images from institutional archives), open research reports from policy institutes.

Purpose

Useful for finding books and articles on niche topics; great for interdisciplinary research; primary source photography and scanned images.

Search Strategies and Using Limiters

• Search under All Content with a keyword or string of keywords, or limit your search to Images by selecting the Images tab.
• For more targeted searching, click Advanced Search to use Boolean operators or search with specific fields, like author, title, abstract, or caption.
  • Within advanced searching, try Select an Access Type and choose Content I can Access to retrieve full text. If you choose All Content and find a resource that does not have full text included in the results, it is possible that the UNT Libraries might have access to the content within the current collections, or you can use the citation information to request the item through Interlibrary Loan if the UNT Libraries do not have the item. 
  • On the Advanced Search page, it is possible to narrow your results more by the item type (articles, reviews, books, research reports, or miscellaneous), by language, and/or publication date.
  • Within Advanced Search, a list of journals appears at the bottom of the page. Select a journal title to search within it or go directly to an article if you know the volume and issue numbers.

Browse Under Advanced Search

• Under Advanced Search, find Browse in the web navigation panel across the top right-hand side of the page. Under Browse, search by subject, such as Music. After selecting Music, use the search bar to enter keywords, do a phrase search, or conduct a complex search with Boolean operators. Alternatively, search within specific music journals and reports.
• Explore searching in other areas of Browse, to find unique collections (this is one strategy for finding primary source material).

Database Features

• Like many databases, JSTOR offers a place to create folders and save the articles you find. This tool is called Workspace. Saving articles is great for retrieving citation information. To use this feature, register for a free account with an email address.
  • Add notes below saved articles in your Workspace folders
  • Get help with creating citations (note: it is important to always check automated citations for errors)
• Export images 
• Share links to articles via email and social media; share links to your folders with other JSTOR users
• Cite and export to a citation manager, like RefWorks
• JSTOR has a beta Text Analyzer that will search documents to make resource recommendations and will also identify topics and terms. Be sure to read the Terms & Conditions on the Text Analyzer page. Try the sample resource provided on the Text Analyzer landing page within JSTOR. This tool could serve as a launching pad for finding resources.