Music Collections

The Smith Library boasts a large and richly diverse music collection of more than 30,000 titles in a wide variety of formats.

Scores

Among scores, we have an impressive and ever-growing reference set of collected works representing over 50 composers in the finest critical editions available. In addition to sets devoted to individual composers, we have nine monuments or collected editions of music and historical editions arranged by genre and country. All these authoritative sources include exhaustive notes, and they are indispensable to the music scholar. Many of the volumes are indexed in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and some have their own indexes and accompanying thematic catalogs.

Our circulating scores number close to 15,000, and represent a healthy balance of vocal and instrumental works of all periods in full and miniature score, as well as solo and ensemble performance editions. Many contemporary works are included.

Recordings

We have roughly 10,000 LP recordings and 4,000 CDs, nicely complementing our scores collection, and also including many 20th century works. Holdings for our CDs can be found by searching the Webcat library catalog. A substantial number of our LP recordings are cataloged only in the card catalog found in the Media Center.

In addition to recordings physically located in the library, students, faculty and staff have online access to more than 80,000 recorded musical pieces through the Naxos Music Library.

Books and Journals

Our book collection of 9,000 music titles supports all our graduate and undergraduate conservatory programs. Of particular note are 2,000 biographies, and numerous music education and music therapy titles, including many historical theses in paper and on microfilm. We subscribe to more than 180 serials and journal titles in music, including the JSTOR music collection, with substantial back-files in paper and microfilm.

Special Collections

Our Special Collections department contains a collection of more than 300 hymnals, Sunday School songbooks, and other sacred music spanning two centuries. We also have hundreds of examples of sheet music from the early 20th century, though these are only partially organized at the present time.

The Norman Heim collection consists of more than 4,000 scores for woodwinds in general and clarinet in particular. The collection is a gift from noted clarinetist and teacher Dr. Norman Heim, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, and includes copies of his own compositions. The collection is organized and cataloged in a Excel database. There are three Excel files that can be downloaded for review: Heim-1, Heim-2, and Heim-3 [Heim-1.xls and so on]. The Heim collection does not circulate. For more information, contact Cindy Thomas in the Reference Department.

Online resources

In addition to the Naxos Music Library, the library has online access to Music Index, RILM, Groves Music Online and the Music-In-Print series.