Tips for Hymnody Research

Tips for using ORBIS

• Reference works:
  The Trowbridge Reading Room has reference works on hymnody and music, such as American Hymns Old and New, Hymns and Tunes, The Dictionary of Hymnology, The New Grove Dictionary of American Music, etc. Other works of a similar nature may be in the stacks. Many of the works on hymnody have call numbers in the BV305 - BV525 range.
  
• Keyword Searching:
  • You can use "truncation" to make keyword searches more efficient. The search K= hymn? and dictionar? will find all ORBIS records with the words "hymn", "hymns", "hymnal", "hymnology", or "hymnody" and "dictionary" or "dictionaries".
  • If you are looking for information on hymnody and a particular denomination, for example, Baptists, you might try K= Baptist? and hymn?
  • Note that works on hymnody are not always located in the Divinity Library. In many cases they will be found in the Music Library, which is located inside Sterling Memorial Library. If you want to find resources that are located in the Divinity Library, you can limit your search by location. For instance, if we wanted all the Methodist hymnals located at the Divinity Library, the following search would be helpful: K= Methodist? and hymn? and div.loc. 
• Subject Searching:
  • There may be a Library of Congress Subject Heading that covers your topic extremely well.
  • Some sample subject headings:
    • Mennonites--Hymns--History and criticism
    • Women hymn writers--Biography.
    • Hymn writers--England--Biography.

  You can find these kinds of subject headings in red books on top of the card catalogs, or find them by doing some keyword searching first and then looking at the subjects used for a particular work.

• Call Number Searching:
  • The Divinity School Library has a extensive collection of old hymnals that are not classified in LC. All of these have a call number that starts with HY. You can view this collection by performing the following search: co= hy . This will show you all the books that begin with this call number. Looking through this collection on-line will also show you some subject headings that may be useful in your research.

Some websites of interest

The Cyber Hymnal: "This site has over 1,300 Christian hymns and Gospel songs from many denominations. You'll find lyrics, sound, background information, photos, links, MIDI files and scores you can download. This worship and teaching resource is provided as a public service."
The Electronic Hymnal
HymnSite
Church Music and other Christian Music: a list of links
The Lowell Mason Hymnal Collection: hymnals at YDSL

Finding material in periodicals

Use the ATLA Religion Database:

Periodicals indexed by ATLA include:Hymn, Journal of Black Sacred Music, Liturgical Ministry, Reformed Liturgy and Music, English Church Music, etc.

   
 Title:          A Classified index to the Society's Bulletin, volumes I-X,    
   
                   1937-1984 / Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland.      
   
 Published:      Croydon, England : The Society, 1988.                         
   
 Description:    iii, 93 p. ; 21 cm.                                           
   
 Subjects (Library of Congress):                                               
   
                 Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland--Periodicals--      
   
                   Indexes.                                                    
   
                 Bulletin (Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland)--Indexes.
   
                 Church music--Periodicals--Indexes.                           
   
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  LOCATION:              CALL NUMBER:               STATUS:                    
   
  DIVINITY, Stacks       008185                     Not checked out            
   
                                                                               
   
   

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