Before sending your jazz reference questions to the Chicago Jazz Archive, please check to be sure the Archive is the right place to bring your question, then follow the guidelines below in formulating your reference request.

The Basics

• Please introduce yourself and provide your contact address.

  The Curator answers all reference questions personally; please introduce yourself, whether you request her assistance in person, by telephone, by letter, or via electronic mail.

  Anonymous email requests for reference assistance cannot be honored; they will receive the URL of these these guidelines. To avoid accidentally sending anonymous email to the Archive, put your identifying information (name and contact address) in the BODY of your email message in case your mailer does not add a signature file.

  If you are writing on behalf of an organization, please include its contact information. Students, please provide the name of your school or your University affiliation, where you are located, and the name of the instructor who is supervising your project.

  It is useful to provide a mailing address in case we need to send you a photocopy; most of the Archive's holdings are not in machine-readable form and cannot be emailed.

• Reference vs Research

  Whether you visit or send us your questions by other means, we can't do research for you. We can't compile custom bibliographies and discographies, search microfilms, dig through uncataloged collections, do extensive photocopying, etc. Our job is to help you identify collections and sources that might be of use; you have to take it from there.

• What we need to know to answer your question

  We need all the detail you can give us. Send us your topic statement or abstract, tell us what you've already read, who you've already talked to, what you've already found. Be as specific as you can about dates, people and recordings you're interested in. Take at look at some examples of real CJA reference questions to get an idea of the kinds of questions we get and what works or doesn't.

Conclusion

Once you're sure that we're the right place to bring your jazz reference question, and that it's as detailed as you can possibly make it, get in touch with us and we'll do our best to find an answer for you.

You can email Deborah Gillaspie, the Archive Curator, using the email link provided at the very bottom of this page. Our mailing address is

Chicago Jazz Archive
1100 E. 57th Street JRL361
Chicago IL 60637-1502.
Phone:(773)702-3721 FAX:(773)702-6623.