Yale University Library
Subject Guides:  Music Research Guide

Music Catalogs at Yale and Beyond Top of Page


Orbis

Orbis is the Yale Library Online Catalog for most of the library; Morris is the Law Library's online catalog.  Please see the guide Music Searches in Orbis for search tips.  The following summarizes the Music Library's records in Orbis:

Orbis also contains records for music books, scores, recordings, and videorecordings in other Yale libraries' circulating, reference, and special collections.

The Finding Aid Database contains online finding aids (that is, the detailed listings of folder contents) for the Music Library's and the American Musical Theatre Collection's (AMTC) processed archival collections, as well as collections in the Beinecke Library, Manuscripts and Archives, and the Divinity Library, which also include significant music holdings.  Search the Finding Aid Database to find references to special collections holdings that are not listed in Orbis.

Eighty of the Music Library's & AMTC's archival collections are also briefly described in the Checklist of Archival Collections.  Paper copies of the finding aids are also available for these collections and are housed in the Reference Room.

Other Yale Catalogs that may include music are listed on the Other Library Catalogs page.

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The Card Catalogs

The Music Library has retained six card catalogs:

  1. Manuscripts--Single manuscripts held by the Music Library
  2. Microfilm cataloged before 1981, split into two files:
  3. Sound Recordings in the Recordings Library, split into two files:
  4. Old Card Catalog 1:  Books and scores, now cataloged in Orbis.  Some analytics for titles in sets appear in this catalog that were not reproduced in Orbis.


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Other Lists of Library Resources

The Music Library maintains several lists of special material, which are not included in Orbis or the Card Catalogs:

Sheet Music Collections
Indexes have been created for several collections of sheet music, the sheets of single songs and instrumental works that provided performing copies of music and were collected intensively until about 1930.  Collection level records are in Orbis.  For searches in the indexes, or to study the collections, please consult the Assistant Music Librarian for Public Services, Suzanne Eggleston Lovejoy (suzanne.lovejoy@yale.edu), in Room ML112.  Indexes that have been completed:
Sound Recordings (uncataloged) in the Recordings Collection.  Lists of uncataloged recordings are available at the Circulation Desk for
The Lowell Mason Library of Music.  Portions of this collection bequeathed to Yale in 1873 are cataloged in Orbis and the Manuscript Card Catalogs.  A handwritten catalog of the entire collection, compiled by Joel Sumner Smith, exists in two parts (please request from the Assistant Music Librarian for Public Services, Suzanne Eggleston Lovejoy (suzanne.lovejoy@yale.edu), in Room ML112) : Other useful printed catalogs or lists of Yale music collections: Top of Page


Beyond Yale

EUREKA, an web portal to RLIN (Research Library Information Network), the database of the Research Library Group containing more than 22 million titles in libraries around the world.

 
WorldCat, an interface to the OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) database of more than 40 million titles in libraries around the world.
Catalogs for Searching Multiple Libraries

National Italian Catalogue of Music Manuscripts to 1900

Music Libraries

Internet pages of selected music libraries.

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Irving S. Gilmore Music Library    Yale University Library


Last Revised:  11/1/05.
Comments to:  Suzanne Eggleston Lovejoy  suzanne.eggleston@yale.edu
URL: http://www.library.yale.edu/musiclib/elecres/catalogs.htm
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