About Us

The Music Library (Room 231 MUB), part of the George A. Smathers Libraries Humanities and Social Science Services Department, is located on the second floor of the Music Building (MUB).  Our mission is to support the research needs of the School of Music's faculty, students and staff, as well as those in other areas.

History

The School of Music has been in existence as an administrative unit since 1948.  At that time, materials, particularly scores and recordings, to support music courses were purchased by and housed in the department.  The Music Reading Room began primarily as a listening facility, staffed by a music faculty member and an employee of the Office of Instructional Resources.  Comparatively few books on music were purchased as part of the general library collection .

The Music Reading Room became part of the UF Libraries in 1972 and has progressed from a reading room used primarily as a listening facility to a research branch library.  The collection now contains music monographs and periodicals, scores, sound recordings (compact discs, 331\3 rpm records, cassettes), video recordings (VHS, DVD, laser discs).  Reference items, periodicals and sound/video recordings are NON-CIRCULATING, so they must be used in the building.  Music Library materials are cataloged in the UF Libraries' online catalog.

Collection

The Music Library collection consists of approximately:

33,328 monograph volumes

13,788 scores

230 monuments, collected works, and historical sets

145 current journal titles   

22,549 sound recordings

1,021 video titles

 

 

 

Significant gifts to the collection include the Didier Graeffe music manuscripts, an annual monetary gift (Graeffe) for the purchase of contemporary music scores and recordings, and an annual gift of scores, methods, and recordings for the Eugene Grissom Trombone Library.

The Music Library's holdings have been cited in Dr. David Z. Kushner's source, Ernest Bloch: A guide to research (NY, Garland, 1988).