Music Library Special Collections: Home

The Gilmore Music Library is home to a large repository of special collections materials, comprised of the Historic Sound Recordings Collection, the Oral History of American Music and the Gilmore Music Library’s special collections.  These collections include rare manuscripts, books, and scores, as well as the papers of notable composers, performers, scholars, and organizations; a wealth of sound recordings from the earliest cylinders to current technology, and a vast library of oral histories taken with notable figures from all areas of American Music.  Familiar names to be found in these collections include Benny Goodman, Virgil Thomson, Charles Ives, Robert Shaw and Vladimir Horowitz, among many others.  

Our special collections are open to researchers from Yale and around the world. This guide offers information about the library's holdings, as well as the policies and procedures that govern their use.

Many Yale libraries have special collections. For general information, see this guide.