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:
- scores - collected editions, miniature, vocal and instrumental scores (much of which is housed off-site and must be requested via the catalogue)
- sound recordings - CDs & DVDs
- books - good subject coverage of classical, jazz and popular genres, including musical theatre, music education, music psychology and music therapy
- journals - current subscriptions on music education and back copies of some musicological titles
- school music - music scores for singing or performance by groups of children and young people. These are part of the Teaching Practice Collection
The majority of the collection is listed on the Enterprise catalogue. Follow the advice on Searching Enterprise for specific formats to find out how to limit your search to specific formats such as printed music, sound recordings, etc.
Vocal and orchestral performance sets
The University's collection of vocal and orchestral sets are now maintained by the University's Music@Reading programme.
University staff and students should contact music@reading.ac.uk 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 the following music-related collections:
- 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 on accessing these collections, 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.