Purpose -This paper seeks to explore how and via what tools music students are identifying, locating, and accessing music materials -specifically scores and recordings -for use in their music studies. It also aims to examine similarities and differences in the information seeking behavior of students in various music sub-disciplines and students at different points in their academic tenure. Design/methodology/approach -The study employed survey and focus groups methodologies. Findings -It was found that students use myriad library and non-library tools to discover and access scores and recordings. It identified the frequency and specificity with which students seek scores and recordings. There are more similarities between performers and music educators than musicologists or other areas, and graduate and upperclass students have different behaviors than underclass students, who are more likely to use library resources. This study also identified some of the reasons students become frustrated in searching for music materials and from where they seek help.Research limitations/implications -The response rate to this survey was only 11 percent and surveys are not the best indicator of actual behavior. While the use of focus groups did offset this to a degree, a more widespread survey and user studies would be merited to understand any wider patters of music student behaviors. Practical implications -With the findings from this study libraries serving music students can tailor their instruction and marketing efforts. They can also focus their collections and resources appropriately for the various types of patrons served by their library. Originality/value -Little previous research has been done on the general information seeking behaviors of music students. Other work has focused on music faculty, specific sub-disciplines in music, or on issues specific to finding music in library catalogs.

YouTube’s accessibility, ease of use, and depth of content are strong lures for music students. But do music teaching faculty and librarians encourage this and do they use it in their own research, teaching, and work? This study surveyed over 9,000 music faculty and over 300 music librarians in the United States. It discovered that faculty rank is at times a factor in faculty use of YouTube for teaching and research—but not always in expected ways. It also found that faculty and librarians do not entirely share perspectives concerning the quality of YouTube’s content, metadata, or copyright concerns.

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The current environment of video sharing sites like YouTube, and direct-to-consumer digital music distribution models, presents challenges to academic music libraries’ primary mission of building collections of materials to support research and create a record of scholarly and artistic output. The rise in the use of smart mobile devices that allow individuals to store large quantities of music and use sites like YouTube has created an expectation that finding and accessing music should be convenient and easy. This article examines the ways in which university music faculty members in the United States consider YouTube use in their teaching and research. It finds that there are differences in how faculty in different music subdisciplines view and use YouTube, and that there is a dichotomy in how faculty as a whole value YouTube for teaching compared with their own work. Faculty understanding of YouTube’s content, legality, and applications for teaching and research varies widely. Finally, this article illuminates how faculty view their institutional libraries in comparison to sites like YouTube, and explores the implications all of this might have for the future of library collections.

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