Collection Scope and Contents

The Music Library Association Archives contains the official records of the Music Library Association (MLA) that document the history, activities, and publications of the organization since its founding in 1931. MLA is the professional association for music libraries and librarianship in the United States with the mission to provide a professional forum for librarians, archivists, and others who support and preserve musical heritage. Formats in the records include manuscripts, financial ledgers, printed publications, sound recordings, oral histories, photographs, scrapbooks, microfilm, realia, born-digital files, musical scores, and artwork. The collection also contains records of select current and former regional chapters, including the Atlantic, Greater New York, and New England Chapters. Records of the California, Midwest, Mountain-Plains, New York State-Ontario, Pacific Northwest, Southeast, and Texas Chapters are housed in repositories within their geographic areas.

Research Value 

Records in the MLA Archives not only document the organization itself, but also the history of music librarianship in the United States and the scholarly discourses of librarianship, musicology, music education, contemporary music, music publishing, and the music trade. The records of MLA board members and MLA's quarterly journal Notes, as well as MLA's oral histories, are of especial value to researchers both within and outside of MLA who are interested in these fields.

Online Exhibit

In July 2017, the MLA Archivist curated an online exhibit, Connecting the Dots: Henry and Sidney Cowell Writings in the Music Library Association Archives, to advocate the value of the collection to users outside of MLA. The University of Maryland Libraries generously hosts this online exhibit. This exhibit serves to educate the public about MLA's rich history, connections to luminaries in modern music history, and inspire researchers to use the records for new scholarship.

Finding Aid

Finding Aid: The finding aid for the Music Library Association records serves as a guide to its holdings. At this time the finding aid is incomplete. Additional description and processing will be uploaded to this site. 

Questions?

For questions related to performing research in the MLA Archives please contact:

Special Collections in Performing Arts
Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library/SCPA
University of Maryland
tel 301.405.9220 fax 301.314.7170
https://www.lib.umd.edu/scpa/contact 

For more information about the MLA Archives please contact:

MLA Archivist
e-mail: archivist@musiclibraryassoc.org