Music

• Up-to-the-moment access to Globe.com with no limit on the number of articles viewed.
• Access will be available for the next 3 days (72 hours). A limited number of passes may be issued each day.
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Freegal Music is a free music streaming and download application. It offers access to millions of songs from a wide variety of artists and genres. Explore more than 20 million songs across every genre, create and share playlists to discover new favorites, and download three free songs every week to add to your permanent collection.

See our FAQs on Freegal Music.

Full-text journal and magazine articles and citations covering the sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, literature, and other subjects. Coverage:1901-present; most full-text coverage after 1980.

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Encyclopedias and other specialized reference sources covering the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences, including medicine, business, law, and more.

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Search millions of articles about drama, music, art history, and filmmaking. Diverse resource for serious fine arts students.

Cross-search Gale OneFile, Gale In Context, and Gale eBooks. Subjects include: agriculture, biography, business, communications and mass media, criminal justice, culinary arts, diversity studies, economics and theory, environmental studies and policy, fine arts, gardening and horticulture, gender studies, global issues, health and medicine, high school edition, home improvement, hospitality and tourism, information science, insurance and liability, leadership and management, military and intelligence, news, nursing and allied health, opposing viewpoints, physical therapy and sports medicine, pop culture studies, popular magazines, psychology, religion and philosophy, science, U.S. history, war and terrorism, and world history.

Cross-search all Gale databases to which BPL subscribes. Subjects include: agriculture, biography, business, communications and mass media, criminal justice, culinary arts, diversity studies, economics and theory, environmental studies and policy, fine arts, gardening and horticulture, gender studies, global issues, health and medicine, high school edition, home improvement, hospitality and tourism, information science, insurance and liability, leadership and management, military and intelligence, news, nursing and allied health, opposing viewpoints, physical therapy and sports medicine, pop culture studies, popular magazines, psychology, religion and philosophy, science, U.S. history, war and terrorism, and world history.

A ten volume encyclopedia of music from all ends of the globe indexed by location, genre, cultural group, instruments, and subjects.

Full-text articles from hundreds of scholarly journals from the mid-19^th century to the early 21^st century covering a wide range of subjects, including complete runs of many historical journals. The most recent 3-5 years of current journals are not available in full-text.

Weekly transcripts of BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) radio and television programs, representing the only record of many early broadcasts and including coverage of contemporary events as well as intellectual, literary, and musical topics.

Searchable full-page and article reproductions back to the first issue on Sept 18, 1851.

Full-text journal articles in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, including ethnic studies, women’s studies, history, and more. Coverage: 1972-present.

Oxford Music Online is the world’s premier online music encyclopedia, offering comprehensive coverage of music, musicians, music-making, and music scholarship.

Contains the complete backfile of Rolling Stone, from its launch in 1967 to 2018. It has been a leading vehicle for rock and popular music journalism, as well as covering wider entertainment topics such as film and popular culture.

A music history database that highlights social and political songs by and about American indigenous, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers and cowboys.Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests, and more.

Classical Music Library's growing collection of 50,000-plus tracks for listening and searching is supplemented by extensive reference materials and backed by a powerful suite of tools designed to support learning.

A music database that offers the streaming of music from all regions of the world. Includes popular music, film scores, and genres of all kinds.

Hoopla will be discontinued as of September 30, 2025. Learn more in this post, "Evolving our Digital Library: What’s New, What’s Changing."

Movies, TV shows, music, eBooks, and comics for online streaming or download to mobile devices, with no waiting lists. Borrow up to 7 items per calendar month.

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The largest and most comprehensive collection of streaming jazz available online with thousands of jazz artists, ensembles, albums, and genres.

A database which provides audio and video in order to provide music teaching materials spanning all time periods and genres of music and dance.

Over 200 performances selected for their importance to the operatic canon, as well as over 60 interviews and documentaries representing the world’s best performers, conductors, and opera houses.

Popular Music Library contains a wide range of popular music including thousands of tracks from genres including alternative, country, Christian, electronic, hip-hop, metal, punk, new age, R&B, reggae, rock, soundtracks and more.

A virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions. The collection provides an unprecedented variety of online resources that share diverse musical forms.

RISM series A/II: Music manuscripts after 1600 is an annotated index and guide to music manuscripts produced after 1600, containing more than 564,000 records by over 19,500 composers into one database which can be easily searched. The manuscripts are found in over 740 libraries and archives in 31 countries.
Coverage: after 1600 (mainly 1600-1850)

A music history database that highlights social and political songs by and about American indigenous, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers and cowboys.Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests, and more.

Primary sources relating to the arts in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, including playbills, scripts, operas, scores, letters, manuscripts, meeting minutes, and financial records.

The Oxford History of Western Music online offers an account of the evolution of Western classical music by musicologist Richard Taruskin. 

This database provides detailed analyses of writings on musical history and culture between 1760 and 1966. It includes exclusive content provided by internationally recognized scholars and editors.

The full-page images of this digitized newspaper provide genealogists, researchers and scholars with cover-to-cover access to recent newspaper content. Every page is full-text searchable. Coverage extends to within days of the current issue.

Up-to-the-moment access to www.bostonherald.com with no limit on the number of articles viewed. Choose 72-hour authenticated access or 24-hour anonymous access. Coverage: 2006-present

Up-to-the-moment access to www.sentinelandenterprise.com with no limit on the number of articles viewed. Choose 72-hour authenticated access or 24-hour anonymous access. Coverage: 2006-present

Text-only articles (not page reproductions) from national and international newspapers, newswires, and some magazines. Coverage: 1981-present. Local Coverage: Cape Cod Times, Hyannis (09.18.2002-11.05.2014); Christian Science Monitor, Boston (01.08.1998 to present); Jewish Advocate, Boston (08.22.1991-09.25.2020); Telegram & Gazette, Worcester (full coverage: 11.29.2006-05.05.2015; scattered coverage: 02.14.1989-11.28.2006)

Text- only articles (not page reproductions).  Does not contain all content found in the published version of the Times, such as advertisements, charts, classified ads, graphs, most images, and non-staff written articles. Updated daily by 8 a.m.

Up-to-the-moment access to nytimes.com with no limit on the number of articles viewed. Read today's news stories as they happen.

Unlimited access while connected to the internet at the library. A limited number of 72-hour passes are available daily for home or remote use. Access may be restricted once the daily limit is reached.

This resource requires you to create a free individual account. You may use your existing nytimes.com account, if you have one.

Up-to-the-moment access to www.lowellsun.com with no limit on the number of articles viewed. Choose 72-hour authenticated access or 24-hour anonymous access. Coverage: 2006-present

A subject-author guide to music periodical literature compiled from over 775 international music periodicals from over 40 countries. Offers historiographic, ethnographic, and musicological data. In addition, book reviews, reviews of music recordings, tapes, and performances are indexed. First performances and obituaries are also noted.
Coverage: 1975-present (with some backfile data from 1962-1975)

Indexes articles, book reviews, poems, and short stories from general-interest U.S. periodicals, including Time, Newsweek, and Ladies’ Home Journal.

Classical Scores Library provided an authoritative source for scores of the classical canon and contemporary works. Includes works from the Middle Ages to the 21st century.

Digitized books, government publications, and other documents from the collections of an international community of research libraries. All material is indexed and searchable, but access to full reproductions is limited to material not under copyright.

The International Music Score Library Project was started in 2006 and contains digitized versions of public domain music scores free of charge.