Music

Music

music scores on bookshelves

Find Us

Knight Library, Third Floor
(541) 346-3079
musicref@uoregon.edu

UO Libraries Music Team

Ann Shaffer, Music and Dance Librarian
Mitch Hughey, Music Cataloger
Jimmy Murray, Manager, Research & Learning Spaces

About the UO Libraries Music Collection

The Music Collection, one of the largest in Oregon, brings together all the resources music performers, scholars, and instructors need in one location. The circulating print materials in the Music Collection consist of over 40,000 music scores and parts (including instrumental methods books), 225 bound and unbound periodical titles (serials, magazines, annuals), and 30,000 books on music.  Areas of special collecting focus in the Music Collection include music by women and music by Oregon musicians.  Additional resources for music research are available in other Knight Library collections, including the Microform Collection, East Asian Collection, and the Children’s and Young Adult Collection.

Music Reference Collection

The Music Reference Collection supplies the tools of bibliographic and performance research, including scholarly dictionaries and encyclopedias on all types of music, published research bibliographies and repertoire guides for various instruments and ensembles, published discographies, critical score editions (including numerous complete works editions for individual composers and many collected works/Monuments of Music editions focusing on specific regions, style periods, or genres), and guides to writing about music. 

Audio Collection

The Audio Collection, located inside the Douglass Room, comprises a wide range of audio content, from Western classical music, jazz, and popular music, to spoken word recordings, literary and dramatic readings, and sound effects.  The collection includes 18,000 compact discs, nearly 30,000 LP records, and about 1,000 cassette tapes.  While all of these formats may circulate outside the library, headphones and listening stations for all formats are available in the Douglass Room. 

Electronic Resources

The Music Collection also includes a variety of electronic resources for music research and learning, including: 

  • Over 1,000 e-books and e-journal titles 
  • Research databases for locating published music scholarship and digital primary sources, such as Music Index, RILM Music Abstracts, Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive, and Ethnomusicology Global Field Recordings
  • Streaming audio collections, such as Naxos Music Library, Database of Recorded American Music (DRAM), Smithsonian Global Sound, and Music Online
  • Streaming video collections featuring live performances, documentaries, and instructional content, such as Berlin Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall, Medici.tv, OnTheBoards, Met Opera On Demand, and Qwest TV EDU

Historic Sheet Music Collection

The Music Collection is home to one archival collection, the Historic Sheet Music Collection, comprising roughly 26,000 pieces of commercial popular songs, early jazz, and light classical sheet music published between 1830 and 1970.  The music in this collection was marketed to amateurs making music at home, and reflects musical and cultural trends in the United States and United Kingdom during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Approximately 1,200 of these pieces have been digitized and are free to view and download from the Digital Sheet Music Collection.

Instrument Collection

In 2024, we launched a small collection of musical instruments available for UO students, faculty, and staff to borrow.  Currently, the collection includes three acoustic guitar kits (one classical model, two folk/rock models), which you can view in the online library catalog. The instrument collection is held inside the Douglass Room, and instruments must be checked out from, and returned to, the Music Help Desk inside the Douglass Room.

The Douglass Room

The Douglass Room houses the Audio Collection, Instrument Collection, Historic Sheet Music Collection, and a small collection of deluxe facsimile reproductions of medieval music manuscripts.  Other features include 4 Audio Listening stations, 5 Creative Musicians' Workstations computers, the Music Help Desk, a 20-seat reservable seminar classroom, a study lounge area, and 2 Audio Production Studios.

Music Special Collections

Other collections of musical archives, rare music materials, and music primary sources are housed in the Knight Library's Special Collections and University Archives Department. A selected list of UO's music manuscript collections may be found in the research guide to Arts, Architecture & Literature in Special Collections. Collections of particular note include:

  • The Harry Carroll (1892-1962) Collection: American songwriter, and founder/director of ASCAP; collection includes correspondence with ASCAP, manuscript and published sheet music, and a manuscript autobiography of Carroll's life
  • The Alexander Merovitch (1895-1965) Collection: Russian impresario who managed careers of Vladimir Horowitz, Gregor Piatigrosky, and others; collection includes correspondence and contracts related to artists he managed, as well as a fair copy manuscript of Samuel Barber's Cello Concerto, op. 22
  • The Ernest F. Loring "Red" Nichols (1905-1965) Collection: cornetist, recording artist, and bandleader of The Five Pennies; collection includes original scores, published sheet music, and recordings
  • The Axel Stordahl (1913-1963) Collection: trumpet player, composer, and arranger for Tommy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, Dean Martin, and others; collections includes scores and arrangements for orchestra and voice