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 post-1850 holdings comprise some 50,200  books on music, 378,000 printed music editions, 6,000 orchestral sets and a wind band music collection. 

All items catalogued from 1986 on (except most manuscripts and pre-1850 publications) can be located either in our local online catalogue or in the Swedish research library union catalogue LIBRIS. They contain many older publications as well, primarily books.

What can/cannot be found in the catalogue?  

SEARCH the catalogue

Helpful hints for searching for music materials in the catalogue

Material that has not yet been converted to the online catalogue must be accessed through the Library’s extensive card catalogues. This is absolutely essential when looking for printed or manuscript music. Due to a cataloguing conversion project started in the spring of 2006, some 2.200 vocal scores are now accessible in the online catalogue as well.

The main card catalogue is divided into Musikalier (printed and manuscript music) and Litteratur (books and periodicals).

Card catalogues
The literature catalogue includes books, periodicals, offprints, and up to ca 1965 a substantial number of articles in Swedish or foreign periodicals and collections. Over the years, some types of publications have been treated differently, e.g., song books (text and melody without accompaniment) and some folk music editions are now in the music catalogue, but older editions may be found in the book (literature) catalogue. All libretti are found in the book  catalogue, though they are mostly entered under the name of the composer.

The alphabetical section of the literature catalogue (arranged by author and/or title) is interfiled with subject headings (on older cards in red).

The music catalogue includes all printed and manuscript music. It contains only material catalogued before 1986. Later material is accessible in the online catalogue or Libris only. It has an alphabetic section (no subject headings). The pre-1986 catalogue has a classified section using an in-house classification system. In the online catalogue, the SAB classification commonly found in Swedish libraries is used both for literature and music (an outline in Swedish is available from the University of Gothenburg). The classified catalogue is located  in our closed stacks, but the staff at the circulation desk will help you to identify and bring up those sections you are interested in when looking for music by instrumentation or genre.

In addition to the main card catalogues, a number of other indexes or finding aids are available for special or rare collections:

Manuscripts in the Alströmer collection:  See the digitized RISM card catalogue
Early music in the Fryklund collection: See the RISM card catalogue
Harp music, older collection: Ask at circulation desk
Manuscript hymn books, older collection: Separate card catalogue
Royal Opera collection: Ask at circulation desk
Popular music collection (reference use only): Ask at  circulation desk
J.H. Roman collection: See the reference shelves,  call no.: Aaxz Roman
Series I (Swedish 19th-century manuscripts): Separate card catalogue
German Church collection:
 Prints : Åke Davidsson, Catalogue... des imprimés de musique... dans les bibliothèques suédoises, on the reference shelves,  call no.: Aax-c:bf.
  Manuscripts: See the RISM card catalogue

Updated 14 April 2010