The Wire
Founded in 1982, The Wire (ISSN: 0952-0686) is a monthly independent music magazine covering a wide range of alternative, underground and non-mainstream music. As its subtitle of “Adventures in Sound & Music” implies, its 400+ issues have celebrated and interrogated “the most visionary and inspiring, subversive and radical, marginalised and undervalued musicians on the planet, past and present, in the realms of avant rock, electronica, hip-hop, new jazz, modern composition, traditional music and beyond.” Although originating in London, its coverage and readership is international and is of particular value to research groups within the music department, both longstanding (NOVARS and Sonic Cultures) and more recent (States of Flux). Access further builds upon the University’s increasing depth of holdings in the field of popular culture, most notably the resources housed within the Library’s recently launched British Pop Archive.
Peer-reviewed journal articles are evaluated and critiqued by researchers and experts in the field before being published. They are high quality academic sources of information.
The best resources for finding journal articles in your field of study are highlighted on this page.
Access to e-journals on campus is normally automatic, although in some cases a username and password are required. This may be either your University central username and password, or another password stipulated by the publisher.
Library Search and the Library databases are the best way of finding peer-reviewed articles on your topic as they index and provide access to articles from thousands of different journal titles.
You can find the key databases for your subject by using the Databases tab in this guide or by accessing the Databases A-Z list.
Library search provides simple, one-stop searching for books and e-books, videos, articles, digital media, and more.
The Library provides access to over 500 databases. These can be found below using Library Search or our A-Z list.
You will often see a '
' tab when looking through your search results in our electronic resources. This tab can be used to see if The University of Manchester Library has access to a particular article in either online or print format.
Articles not held by the library can be ordered via our Inter-Library Loan service.
If you are using Google Scholar on campus, the Findit@Manchester link will appear automatically next to your list of search results.
Find help and support with all aspects of locating and borrowing resources.
Getting started with search tools
This resource explores Google, Google Scholar, subject databases and Library Search, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses to enable you to make an informed choice when selecting where to search for information.
View all workshops and online resources in this area on the
My Learning Essentials webpages.
Databases are the best way of finding peer-reviewed articles on your topic as they index and provide access to articles from thousands of different journal titles.
The University of Manchester Library subscribes to over 400 databases but not all of these will be relevant to your subject. You can find the key databases for your subject by using the Databases tab in this guide or by accessing the Databases A-Z list.
The full range of electronic resources can be accessed through the A-Z list of electonic journals homepage.
In most cases, you will require a central username and password to access these resources off-campus.
It is worthwhile carrying out a search on Google Scholar for articles relevant to your topic.
If you search Google Scholar while on campus, you'll find links to the full text articles on the Library databases via the Findit@MCR link.
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