The Music Division has commissioned over 450 composers since 1925, and continues to do so annually. World premiere performances of these commissions usually take place on the Library of Congress Concert Series. Original scores, sketches, and electronic music notation files from these commissions comprise a unique part of the Music Division's collections. The LC Commissioned Composers Web Archive contains websites of composers who have been commissioned by Music Division funds. This web archive is not only a resource in itself, but also an information pathway to the Music Division's unique collection materials and a digital record of the Music Division's role as an active commissioning body in the new music community.

The LC Commissioned Composers Web Archive includes the professional websites of living and deceased composers, as well as websites of foundations, institutes, museums, and awards established in memory of deceased composers. Archived websites include content that documents composers' careers over time, including biographical information, photos, musical recordings, videos, writings, concert calendars, reviews, social media, upcoming projects, and works lists. Composers represented by websites in this collection are from the United States, Asia, Central America, Europe, Middle East, North America, and South America.

Commissioning funds in the Music Division represented by websites in this collection include the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation, the Da Capo Fund, the Verna and Irving Fine Fund, the Ira and Leonore S. Gershwin Fund, the Mae and Irving Jurow Fund, the Carolyn Royall Just Fund, the Hans Kindler Foundation, the Dina Koston and Roger Shapiro Fund for New Music, the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, the Boris and Sonya Kroyt Memorial Fund, and the McKim Fund.

Website records in the LC Commissioned Composers Web Archive feature brief abstracts with biographical information about the composers, their works commissioned by the Library of Congress, the respective commissioning funds, and links to online catalog records for the original commissioned scores. Links to digital collections and special collection finding aids are also included when applicable.

Websites out of the scope of this collection are Wikipedia pages, fan sites, faculty pages hosted by educational institution domains, and composer pages created by music publishers. The goal of this collection is to capture content as close to the composers as possible with websites created or administered by them, their heirs, or their artistic or legal representation.

Collection Period: October 2018 to present (this is an ongoing archive).

Frequency of Collection: Capture frequencies vary from once to monthly. Websites of living composers are crawled mostly on a quarterly basis, with some exceptions made for websites with more or less frequent updates. Websites of deceased composers without posthumous updates are captured once, while websites of deceased composers with posthumous updates are captured annually. Websites of composers' memorial foundations, institutes, and awards are also crawled on an annual or twice-yearly basis.

Languages: Collection material in Chinese, Dutch, English, Flemish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

Acquisition Information: Sites have been added incrementally since the project began and will continue to be added as they are identified.