Music

The Library has a range of resources to support interdisciplinary teaching and research in music, as well as recreational musical activity in the University. Materials available include:

• books - good subject coverage of classical, jazz and popular genres, including musical theatre, music education, music psychology and music therapy, children's books and music textbooks
• journals - current subscriptions on music education and back copies of musicological titles
• school music - music for singing or performance by groups of children and young people. These are part of the Teaching Practice Collection
• scores - collected editions, miniature, vocal and instrumental scores - including the Finzi Music Collection and the Newbury String Players Collection of performance sets
• sound recordings - CDs.
• multimedia - kits, videos and DVDs.

The majority of the collection is listed on Unicorn catalogue. Follow the advice for searching for specific media on Unicorn to find out how to limit your search to specific formats such as printed music, sound recordings, etc.

For further information and help contact Christopher Cipkin, Music Librarian.

Vocal and orchestral performance sets

The University's collection of vocal and orchestral sets (with the exception of the Newbury String Players Collection) are now maintained by the Director of Music. University staff and students should contact music@reading  for more information.

If you are enquiring from outside the University about borrowing a set, please note that requests should continue to be made to the Library and that the University will only lend performance sets to other UK university libraries. We use recognised inter-library loan arrangements, and loans are made subject to sets being in good condition and not being required for forthcoming performances within the University. Please contact inter-library loans to arrange this. Most of our orchestral set holdings are listed on Encore, the National Union Catalogue of Performance Sets.

Special Collections

The University's Special Collections Service houses:

• Finzi Book Room - contains the literature and collection of the composer, Gerald Finzi
• Spellman Collection - Victorian sheet music covers
• Baron Collection - lithographed music
• Archives - containing concert programmes and other printed ephemera related to music

For further information, visit the Special Collections website.

Online resources

University members can access Oxford Music Online - full text of The new Grove dictionary of music and musicians, The new Grove dictionary of opera, The new Grove dictionary of jazz, Oxford companion to music, Oxford dictionary of music.

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