Music Library

The UNT Music Library - one of the largest academic music collections in the United States - contains over 250,000 volumes of books, periodicals, scores, dissertations, and reference works in countless languages.

In addition to the printed collection, the Music Library has nearly 500,000 sound recordings in a variety of formats, including Edison cylinders, gramophone records, reel-to-reel tapes, compact discs, and digital tape recordings.  Playback equipment is provided for different types of recordings in the audio center, and in-house audio transfers of older formats occur in the preservation studio.

The Music Library's collection of rare books and scores contains material ranging from medieval manuscripts to limited, signed first editions of twentieth-century composers.  Original and facsimile scores include a noteworthy collection of works by Jean-Baptiste Lully, first editions of Handel's Messiah and Mozart's Don Giovanni, and several eighteenth-century operas.

Special collections in the Music Library include manuscripts of Aaron Copland, Arnold Schoenberg, band leaders Duke Ellington and Stan Kenton, composers Don Gillis, Julia Smith, and Merrill Ellis, sheet music collections from radio stations WBAP (Fort Worth) and WFAA (Dallas), the Leon Breeden Jazz Archives, personal papers, memorabilia, and recordings from Willis Conover, jazz disc jockey on the Voice of America for over forty years, and an expansive collection of analog and digital recordings of UNT College of Music concerts and recitals.

Music Library materials are accessible through the main online catalog with the exception of items from the WBAP Collection and the Song Collection, which are cataloged in the Special Collections Database.