Last revised: August 2009
Finding Music Scores
Scope: This is a guide to finding music scores in the UM Libraries, especially the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library. Scores can be tricky to locate; if you do not find what you need, please contact librarian Steve Henry (shenry@umd.edu or 301-405-9256) for more information.
Table of Contents
Cataloged Scores
The Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library has the largest collection of music scores among the USMAI libraries. Anyone with a current USMAI borrower card may borrow circulating scores.
Cataloged scores in the PA Library are in these locations:
- Floor 1:
Course Reserves (ask at desk)
Reference
Lowens Room open shelves
Lowens Room Rare Stacks (ask at desk)
- Floor 2:
Miniature Scores
Folio
Oversize
In the Catalog, use ADVANCED SEARCH, limit FORMAT to SCORES and use any combination of Composer, Title, Genres of Music to locate scores and identify call numbers.
EXAMPLES:
1. Finding SCORES for Mozart's Requiem:
2. Finding SCORES for *Quintets with Oboe and Violin
*when searching for types of compositions, use the plural form as a subject search; concertos, sonatas, quartets, operas...
Uncataloged scores in the PA Library
Most uncataloged gift collections of scores in the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library have inventories. These collections include:
20th/21st-Century Consort Score Collection: many scores fully cataloged, but for complete inventory, contact Special Collections in Performing Arts [http://www.lib.umd.edu/PAL/SCPA/scparefreqform.html]
American Composers Alliance Scores on Deposit: Online inventory [http://www.composers.com/]
Contemporary Music Project Archives Scores: Online inventory [http://www.lib.umd.edu/PAL/SCPA/MENC/CMP/]
International Clarinet Association Research Center Score Collection: Online inventory [http://www.lib.umd.edu/PAL/SCPA/icarcinfo.html]
Piano Music Score Collection: contact International Piano Archives at Maryland
[http://www.lib.umd.edu/PAL/IPAM/IPAMcontact.html]
Following is a partial list of score collections that have been inventoried by staff in Special Collections in Performing Arts. Some printed inventories are shelved in the Lowens Room for Special Collections of the PA Library. Contact SCPA for more information.
- American Bandmasters Association Research Center Scores
- Community Songbooks
- Gillian B. Anderson Film Music Scores
- Ginn & Co. Folk Music Collection
- Maryland Sheet Music Collection
- Minichini Band Scores
- National Association of Wind and Percussion Instructors Research Center Scores
- Manuscript and printed scores of individual composers, including Philip Gordon, Alice Parker, Claude T. Smith, Lynn Steele, and George Tremblay
- School Music Textbooks
(historical collection)
Scores in Other UM Libraries
To do a thorough search for scores in UM Libraries, do not limit your search to the PA Library.
At College Park, a substantial number of scores are in microfilm collections at McKeldin Library.
Some scores not owned in College Park Libraries are in the USMAI Libraries system. In the catalog, searching USMAI (all campuses) broadens your chances of finding what you need.
For example, doing an all-campus search on 'children's' as subject word and 'scores' as format will yield 407 hits. Doing the same search with just UMCP as location yields only 373 hits and searching just in the PA Library yields only 254 hits.
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A note on Juvenile scores: Although USMAI has many juvenile scores shelved in the Library of Congress classification system's M series, at UMCP's McKeldin Library (2nd floor) and some USMAI campus libraries, juvenile scores have call numbers in the Dewey classification system's 780 series. You can do a basic search on call number '780' in Catalog - USMAI (all campuses) to browse these scores.
Scores deposited as UM theses and dissertations are available for study in the PA Library, the Maryland Room at Hornbake Library, and, full text from 1997 to the present, in Digital Dissertations Full Text, where dissertation scores from other universities are also available to UM Libraries researchers.
Online Scores
- Classical Scores Library
LOCATION: Through Research Port (access limited to UM students/faculty/staff, and to patrons in the libraries)
Currently contains 1,816 musical scores in PDF format, with that number expected to grow to 8,000. The current collection is especially strong in 18th and 19th century music, but includes works from the 15th century through the 21st century. Notably, the entire Boosey and Hawkes catalog will be contained within the resource.
- International Music Score Library Project
LOCATION: http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page
The most comprehensive collection of public domain printed music on the Internet, in wiki format. Availability of scores depends on what users have uploaded.
- Choral Public Domain Library
LOCATION: http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
The choral counterpart to IMSLP, containing public domain choral music uploaded to the CPDL wiki by users.
