Music Library Special Collections: Home

The Gilmore Music Library is home to a wide variety of special collections materials, comprising 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.  

Because of the pandemic, our special collections are currently open only to Yale students in residence, faculty, and staff. When circumstances return to normal, they will again become available to researchers from around the world.

Also because of the pandemic, researchers will now use our special collections in the Manuscripts & Archives Reading Room (just down the hall from the Music Library in Sterling Memorial Library). For information about services in the MSSA Reading Room (and to reserve a seat), see their guide.

Music Library staff are available to advise researchers; contact us at musicspecialcollections@yale.edu.

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