The Library of Congress is home to one of the world's preeminent music collections. With over 25 million items in its custody, the Music Division preserves and provides access to general music collections comprised of musical scores, instructional books, and music literature, as well as special collections that include the personal papers of notable creative artists, the business papers of publishers and artistic foundations, and more. Researchers of many backgrounds and disciplines travel from around the world to study the Library’s music collections from an endless array of perspectives: historians and documentarians, performers and artists, scholars and students, music enthusiasts, and others.

In addition to its extraordinary on-site collections, the Performing Arts Reading Room offers researchers access to a constantly growing body of electronic resources. Many of these resources are freely available online, including the Music Division’s digital collections, curated web archives, and open-access online resources. Additional subscription databases are only accessible in the Performing Arts Reading Room or elsewhere on the Library of Congress campus.