Books, videos, music and other resources can be borrowed from Bowdoin, Colby, Bates, and libraries in the Northeast and beyond.
Search boxes for the various catalogs are available on this page.
Information about rock amd popular music and musicians can be found in a wide-range resources. The term, popular music, has been applied a wide-range of music, including rock, jazz, blues, ethnic folk music, world music, and vernacular music. Be creative with your searches and try alternate terms and subject headings and resources in a variety of subject areas.
For more information about researching world music and jazz, please visit the research guides devoted to these topics.
The subject of rock music and popular music may also be searched in the catalog by decade, for example:
Popular music--1921-1930; Rock music--1951-1960, etc.
Books (About Popular music and Rock music)
In the catalog, books on this topic may be found under the broad terms of Popular music and Rock music and under terms associated with genres and types of music.
For example:
Alternative rock music
Hip hop (Music)
Punk rock music
Popular music
Folk music
Popular culture
Music social aspects
Often great resources can be found by browsing the shelves in the H-L or Music Library. Books published before 2009 can be found in the H-L Library, 3rd floor; books publishedin the last two years are available in the Music Library.
For books on:
Rock music History,
browse: ML3534
Popular music History
browse: ML3469-ML3541
National (folk or ethnic)
browse: ML3545-ML3775
Musicians,
browse: ML385-ML402 and ML417-ML422
Scores
Collections of popular and rock music can be found in collections of transcriptions of various musicians, collections for individual instruments and in "fakebook" collections of jazz and popular music.
The Music Library also has a collection of fakebooks and collections of popular and folk music.
Rock and Popular music "Fakebooks"
browse: M1630.18
For transcriptions and collections for individual instruments search the catalog
Sound Recordings
CDs and LPs of popular and rock recordings can be found in the Music Library CD cabinets and LP shelves under the call numbers beginning with "Popular," "US-Ethno" and "Ethno."
There are also large collections of online recordings available; these will not be found in the catalog.
Video Recordings
Video recordings are available in the Music Library and H-L Library Media Commons.
Films on Demand, a streaming video collection, also contact a large collection of videos devoted to rock and popular music.
