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The following text deals only with the Library's music collections. For information on theatre materials in the Library, please visit the Theatre collections home page.
The Library's modern (post-1850) collections consist of music literature (books, periodicals and other text documents), printed music, and a limited number of sound and video recordings/DVDs, microforms, and electronic media (catalogued resources on the Internet). Publications newer than ca. 100 years may be borrowed by any Swedish citizen. Foreign residents may have borrowing privileges if they either (a) have a Swedish social security number ("personnummer"), or (b) are staying in the country for more than three months and show photo identification.
Electronic resources
After a slow start, the growth of electronic media is strong in music, not
least because of major digitization projects in several countries. The
Library devotes considerable effort to cataloguing material that is freely
accessible online, applying the same quality criteria as for printed media,
but there has been no wholesale switch from printed to digital
material: historical sources retain their value, and many of our users still
prefer the printed versions (for books as well as music) when both types are
available.
Digitial library (the Library's own collections).
The Library also has extensive holdings of rare materials (manuscripts and 16-19th-century printed and manuscript music, books and periodicals), composer archives and special collections, including photographs [page in Swedish only] and other images. They can be consulted in the reading rooms without special permission, and scanned or paper copies may be ordered.
The same is true for the extensive special collections and archives,
images etc. housed in the Stockholm Music Museum that are in the
Library's care since 2003.
Due to shortage of staff, advance notification is required for those.
Loans and use of the collections are free of charge. Except for the Music
Museum, prior notification is not required
(though recommended for the rare materials as it allows us to provide better service). Except for the
reference collection
(bibliographies, dictionaries and similar tools, as well as composer
collected editions), all materials are in closed stacks and must be located in
the catalogues by the patron and ordered in the
Online catalogue or on call slips.
Normally, items will be paged within 30 minutes.
At the end of 2007 the holdings comprised:
The figures refer to titles unless otherwise mentioned. One title may represent anything from 1 leaf to a score of 500 pages with 60 orchestral parts.
The annual growth (all categories) is ca. 20 linear m.
Another noteworthy resource is the extensive central indexes of music literature and union catalogues of musical source materials throughout Sweden produced by the Library's Archives, Special Collections and Documentation.
Musicology, as long defined in Sweden, encompasses both humanistic, social science and natural science disciplines. In addition, music as a performing art, with written documents and recordings, is included in the Library's remit.
Historically, Western art music from the 18th and 19th centuries forms the nucleus of the collections. Today, there is no such limitation in our acquisitions.
Fiction on musical topics is no longer collected, though several such titles may be found in the collections.
Music literature
The Library collects in all musicological and musical disciplines:
Reference books (dictionaries, bibliographies, composers' work lists, databases) are given high priority, regardless of (Western) language. Discographies are covered very selectively, since the Statens ljud- och bildarkiv (Swedish National Archive of Recorded Sound and Moving Images) traditionally covers those.
Selected free resources on the Internet (text and music) are catalogued if they meet the standards that apply to other material and may be expected to persist. CD-ROM is a dying technology now replaced by online resources or DVDs.
Periodicals in other Western languages than the Scandianvian, English and German: the aim is to have at least one per country.
Within each category, subjects that are engaging Swedish scholars are given more weight than those that are not. Theoretical works are bought to the extent possible.
Literature on rock/pop and cultural studies is well represented at the Gothenburg University Library and other academic libraries. We can be selective.
Music therapy is bought restrictively, hardly any in other languages than Swedish or English.
Geographic limits:
With regard to historical studies, European and North American music dominates. The fellow Nordic countries are also given high priority. A representative selection of studies of other parts of the world.
Linguistic limits:
Works in Swedish, English, German and other Scandinavian languages are bought without regard to subject. French, Italian and Spanish literature is limited to works about their national music or important theoretical studies. The same is true of a limited selection of titles in other European languages and Russian.
Music
For printed music all forms och genres are covered:
At the scholarly level, pride of place has been given to monumental or Gesamtausgaben (Western art music of individual composers or countries in critical editions) and the library has en extensive reference colletion. Similar editions of music in other traditions are bought as well. Because of their cost, subscriptions to the many new collected editions are now rarely entered into and orders may be for individual volumes rather than whole sets.
Of performance-oriented music the library acquires a representative sample from all forms and genres. Swedish art music is bought to the extent possible. Pop folios and the considerable amount of sacred hit tunes are bought sparingly (they are available through legal deposit at the Royal Library and elesewhere).
The Library has two extensive special collections of music for orchestras and larger ensembles: some 6,000 orchestral sets (scores and parts) and wind band music. These are primarily for loan within Sweden.
Sound and video recordings
Sound recordings used to be limited to Swedish releases that have historical or documentary value. Other recordings, often received as gifts, are available in the collections, but we usually recommed a public library for such material. The Library provides online access to the Naxos music collections for users with library cards.
Video recordings (DVD) are bought very selectively, primarily opera and other lyric arts.
Updated 15 April 2010