Overview and suggestions for use The American Music Resource textbase is housed by the sunsite computer of the O.I.T. at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. As of 5/94, the collection contains 64 subjects, 22 topics, and several research-notes, for a grand total of around 500 files - 1.5 megabytes of information. The primary purpose of AMR is to provide on-line lists of printed resources to serve as a good starting point for research in all areas of American Music. Answers for such typical questions as: "Who wrote that song?" or "What is that album?" or "When did this happen?" or "What is that style?" may be found in general reference books, separated by categories and listed in the Subject and Topic indexes. More detailed lists of information are available for the specific subjects and topics themselves. Unlike most INTERNET bibliographical sources (library catalogs), AMR is dedicated to a single, general area, making access quicker and more specific. This is further aided by subject, topic, and bibliographical- type subdivisions. And, while other on-line sources are certainly "up-to- date," this collection also contains citations of older materials. The American Music Resource contains a large amount of information about its general area. The list of American Music periodicals also contains citations of various centers and organizations related to the field. Many other levels of information may be discovered by prowling through the files. The bibliographical-type searches are especially useful for scholars and, if nothing else, certainly suggest the possibilities for many dissertation topics. The Research Notes are intended to grow and develop like INTERNET list-servers and news groups; submissions are encouraged. This is a growing collection of information intended to serve a wide variety of professionals, students and one-time users. It exists to help develop and promote all styles of American Music. GOPHER-INDEXED TOP-DOWN design: 1. American Music Resource - about the collection. (one file) 2. Contents, Caveata, and Communications/ (several files - information about the collection itself) 3. Subject Index (persons - many files indexed by last name)/ 4. Topic Index (topics in American Music indexed by topic name)/ 5. Bibliographical Index/ (all files under 3. and 4. indexed by file-types) 6. Research Notes/ (ongoing individual research topics, comments, discussions) 7. Documents/ (on-line papers) 8. Search the American Music Resource (a WAIS word-search of all files under 3. and 4. - it will generate an index of files containing the specified keyword, which will be highlighted within each file.) The majority of AMR's content - all the bibliographical files - will be found listed under the Subject and Topic indexes, and cross-listed by file-types under the Bibliographical index. For storage and FTP purposes, each filename follows DOS/UNIX protocols: the first three letters (prefix) indicate the subject/topic name; the second three letters (suffix) indicate the content of the file; example: BLNBIB - BLN= Irving Berlin, BIB= books specifically about. See AMRSTYLE, AMRFILES and AMRNAMES for more details. For FTP, connect to "sunsite.unc.edu" and log-in as "anonymous." The files appear in the /pub/academic/music/American-Music-Resource directory. 5/94