The online version of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians has been an anticipated resource in the field of music for a number of years. First of all, this resource is a work in progress. There are many sections in which little if any work has been done; therefore, it is difficult to give an adequate reaction to the online version. In any case, many institutions are currently paying for this “work in progress,” so it is essential to provide some type of evaluation to those who may be considering the purchase of this product, either now or in the near future.
From the opening page, there are four main points of access to this resource. The first is an article search, where users can type in keywords and jump immediately to articles. The other three access points are labeled Search, Browse, and Explore.
Under Search, users have the following options: Full Text, Biographies, Bibliographies, Links, and Contributors. For the first option, users can select concept, pattern, or Boolean searching. They can also highlight search terms, explain search results, and do an expert search. When searching biographies, users are presented with six options: Birth date, Birth place, Death date, Death place, Nationality, and Occupation. I found it strange that searching under Name was not an option here. Under Search Bibliographies, only keyword searching is available, and under Search Links, only caption keyword searching is available (this connects to Internet sites outside of this resource).
Under Browse, users may choose Articles A‐Z, Abbreviations A‐Z, or Contributors A‐Z. Finally, under Explore, there are not any options until the second level, where users are presented with 11 selected categories, mainly performers (this is one of the areas under development).
Besides the four main points of access, a list of options provided on the left side of the main page includes links to Future Updates, Feedback, About the New Grove II, About the Grove Music Library, About Other Online Products (subdivided into North America and Rest of World), and Credits. The most interesting option is Future Updates, where sections called What’s New, Free Sample Articles, Free Trials, and How We “Electrified” are provided.
Search results are presented in weighted order. When viewing an article, a table of contents is displayed on the left side of the screen. At the top of the article are listed Article, Illustrations, Sound, Related Articles, Links, and backward and forward keys. If there are no illustrations or sound bytes associated with an article, these words are not highlighted and cannot be accessed. I could not find any sound bytes within the articles, and would find it of interest to have both “Search Illustrations” and “Search Sound Bytes” sections included in future versions. Many of the links to outside resources provided in the articles were of high quality and of interest.
One of my main problems with this dictionary is in the illustrations. As a medieval musicologist, I was amazed and somewhat startled to find examples of medieval music provided in contemporary modern‐day notation. Instead, authentic manuscript reproductions or digitizations of medieval music should have been used as examples. This clearly needs to be addressed, as modern music notation should only be provided for music written in that notation. Users (especially students) will obtain little to no illustrative material for reference or visual feedback on music of this time period without the actual sources/manuscripts illustrated, and seeing Gregorian chant transcribed into modern notation in a resource of this importance is inexcusable.
According to other sources, there are currently 3,500 links to other sites available, and 2,000 additional images from the print edition as well as 1,500 other links will have been incorporated by January 2001. While there are many advantages to this resource being available online, the current product leaves much to be desired. It might be best for those considering the purchase of this product to wait another year until some of the issues described above can be addressed.
