Research Guides: Remote Learning with Online Library Resources: Other Resources

Need More Help?

The librarians are here for you! We are excited to help if you need advice on using library resources, doing research online, or accessing materials. Email flaxman@saic.edu to connect with us.

The Library Search is a Great Starting Point for Audio!

Use the search box below to search almost everything the library has to offer, or visit the library homepage. The library has CD, Audiocassette, and Vinyl collections available, as well as streaming audio collections.

Consider starting with these preset search parameters for audio:
Finding Audio: Popular Music (newest first) | Avant-garde Music (newest first) | Audio books (newest first)

Music / Sound Databases

You can locate audio in the Flaxman catalog, but there are other library Databases you may consider searching. Most of databases listed below are useful for find magazine articles about music and sound.

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Includes the magazines and journals Popular Music & Society, Psychomusicology: Music, Mind & Brain, Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies, Rolling Stone, The Fader, and more.
Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new window
Includes the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Grove Dictionary of Jazz, New Grove 2001, Grove Opera, and Grove Jazz.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Includes the journals Black Music Research Journal, Computer Music Journal, Leonardo Music Journal, Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, and more
Rock's Backpages This link opens in a new window
Archive of music journalism featuring 28,000+ articles on artists from Aaliyah to ZZ Top, on all genres from rockabilly to hip hop, by music writers of the last 50 years.

All Available Music / Sound Databases (from Databases A-Z)

Music / Sound Websites

BBC Sound Effects Library This link opens in a new window
Sound archive freely available to download over 16,000 sound effects for “personal, educational or research purposes” from animal sounds to rattling window frames. Audio CDs of BBC sound effects are also available in the Flaxman Library.
Birds of the World This link opens in a new window
Brings together 4 renowned ornithological reference works published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Covering the life histories of all breeding birds. Includes images, video, sound files, full-text articles.

Creative Audio Archive (CAA)
The Creative Audio Archive (CAA) is a Chicago based center for the preservation and investigation of innovative and experimental sonic arts and music. CAA is an initiative of the Experimental Sound Studio (ESS), formed in response to growing concerns over the general state of historical preservation of non-mainstream audio, in particular, recordings, print, and visual ephemera related to avant-garde and exploratory sound and music of the last five decades.
Experimental Sound Studio
Experimental Sound Studio is a Chicago-based nonprofit organization dedicated to artistic evolution and the creative exploration of sound.
Florasonic
Florasonic is a unique program that commissions composers and artists to make new site-specific music and audio art installations for the Fern Room of the Lincoln Park Conservatory, a turn-of-the-century greenhouse.
Lampo
Founded in 1997, Lampo promotes and supports artists working in experimental music and intermedia, by commissioning, producing and presenting special projects and performances. Lampo brings artists from across the U.S. and around the world to Chicago, and offers the public rare opportunities to experience their pioneering work in person.
Pitchfork
UbuWeb: Sound
UbuWeb is a completely independent resource dedicated to all strains of the avant-garde, ethnopoetics, and outsider arts. All materials on UbuWeb are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights belong to the author(s).
Wire: adventures in modern music
Wire: Audio

Sources for Archival Materials

AIC Special & Digital Collections
Ryerson and Burnham Art and Architecture Archive collect artists’ and architects’ papers that illuminate the development of art and architecture in Chicago and the Midwest from the 1870s to the present, as well as complement the museum’s permanent collections.

ArchiveGrid This link opens in a new window
This union catalog of archival collections is a combination of nearly a million descriptive records for individual collections and the full text of over 48,000 finding aids (detailed collection guides or inventories) from international libraries and archives. Includes materials from the Medieval and Renaissance eras to the current day.

Archives of American Art
Smithsonian's archival collections and oral histories of American art and artists; contact a librarian at Flaxman Library to request microfilm through interlibrary loan

Art History Research net This link opens in a new window
3 full text collections--ReVIEW, arts & architecture journals; Arts + Architecture ProFILES, biographical data on artists, architects, & designers; Research Source on The Poster--plus Design Abstracts Retrospective, indexing applied arts and design journals from 1900-1986.

Asia Art Archive
Wide range of documentation, including the personal archives of significant artists, educators, and art professionals, key exhibitions and art spaces on contemporary art in Asia. Many collections are digitized.

CARTA: Collaborative ART Archive This link opens in a new window
NYARC and the Internet Archive's collaborative project aimed at capturing and preserving at-risk web-based art materials, primarily collections of archived web-based content related to art history and contemporary art practice.
Collections on Black Experiences This link opens in a new window
The Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) gathers information about archival collections held by member organizations that document African American and African diasporic culture, history, and politics, with a specific focus on materials relating to Chicago. The searchable database includes records about collections that were processed or surveyed through the BMRC's Survey Initiative and Color Curtain Processing Project programs, as well as finding aids contributed from our members about relevant materials in their repositories.

Getty Research Portal
Free online search platform providing worldwide access to an extensive collection of digitized art history texts from a range of institutions

Google News Archive This link opens in a new window
Searchable archives of digitized newspapers including the Village Voice.

Historical research in Europe
UW's guide to assist researchers who are planning to use European libraries and archives; search for archives or browse by subject

Indigenous Peoples of North America This link opens in a new window
Collection of primary-source materials on the Indigenous people of Canada and the United States, including artwork, manuscripts, monographs, motion pictures, newspapers, and photographs from a wide variety of archival sources.
Internet Archive This link opens in a new window
Many digitized items can be checked out for a limited period. Continually growing collection offering permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format.
JSTOR: World Heritage Sites: Africa This link opens in a new window
Visual, contextual, and non-spatial documentation of African heritage sites. These materials serve researchers in African studies, anthropology, archaeology, architecture, art history, Diaspora studies, folklore and literature, geography, and history, as well as those focused on geomatics, advanced visual and spatial technologies, historic preservation, and urban planning. More downloadable datasets and spatial documentation for the Zamani Project can be found here.

MoMA Archives
Researchers may request digitization of an entire folder of archival material; you must agree to the conditions of use, and the scans are made available for research purposes only. The fees for this service are $30.00 per folder for scholars, students, and non-profit organizations, and $60.00 per folder for commercial entities.

National Archives This link opens in a new window
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the United State's record keeper, including government documents, historic documentation of American life, and robust digital collections.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Photography This link opens in a new window
Collection of photographs, albums, illustrated books and texts on the early history of photography, containing images from Africa, Asian, Europe, and the Americas.
People’s Graphic Design Archive This link opens in a new window
A crowd-sourced virtual archive of inclusive graphic design history, including everything from finished projects to process, photos, correspondence, oral histories, anecdotes, articles, essays, and other materials.
SAIC Digital Collections This link opens in a new window
Online institutional repository created and managed by the John M. Flaxman Library. Presents curated selections of historic publications, archival materials, student theses, and artists’ works drawn from our library shelves or from other campus special collections. They are offered here for educational and research purposes. Not all content available to be read online.

SAIC Institutional Archives
All historic School records, including information on faculty, are housed in the museum: Art Institute of Chicago Archives. Email archives@artic.edu with questions.

South Asia Open Archives (SAOA) This link opens in a new window
SAOA is a rich and growing collection of historical and contemporary sources in the arts, humanities and social sciences from and about South Asia available through JSTOR.
World's Fairs and Expositions, Visions of Tomorrow This link opens in a new window
Collection of primary-source documents about significant expositions from 1840 to 1923 from the Smithsonian.