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.  

Yale University Library special collections reading rooms are now open to non-Yale researchers who have been fully vaccinated and boosted, when eligible. Please see The Guide to Using Special Collections at Yale University for information on gaining access.   

Researchers 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, 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.