About the Music Library: Library Description

The University of Louisville Dwight Anderson Memorial Music Library houses the largest academic music collection in the state of Kentucky. Since its founding in 1947, the principal mission of the library has been to provide materials in support of the curriculum of the University of Louisville School of Music and the research of its faculty, staff, and students. In recent years, coverage has been extended to accommodate the growth of music-related study throughout the University.

The library is named after Dwight Anderson, Dean of the School of Music at the University of Louisville from 1937 to 1956. The library is currently staffed by 2 full-time music librarians, 3 full-time staff members, and approximately 8 part-time student employees. The 5 full-time employees of the library have over 100 years of combined years of service in the music library.

Because the School of Music specializes in training musicians for professional careers as performers and educators in a wide variety of music career fields, the emphasis of the library’s collection is on printed music, monographs, and sound recordings in all areas in which degree programs are offered. The library's collection development policy adjusts regularly to meet the evolving needs of the School of Music and was last updated in July 2025.

Many visiting scholars and librarians have remarked that the Anderson Library is situated in one of the best music library facilities in the United States. Since 1981, it has been located in the School of Music building on the University of Louisville Belknap campus. The collections are distributed over three floors, with some room for growth. Reference materials, materials on course reserve, and video recordings are shelved on the first floor. Scores, collected editions, and the piano pedagogy collection are shelved on the second floor. Books, periodicals, and UofL School of Music student theses are shelved on the third floor. A secure compact shelving location in the basement houses the Grawemeyer Collection, containing more than 5,000 scores submitted for the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. The library has available audio and video playback equipment to accommodate all types of media held in our collections. The total holdings of the Music Library exceed 200,000 volumes, including 38,000 books, 100,000 music scores, 30,000 sound recordings, 17,000 journals, and 4,000 video recordings. Digital subscriptions are maintained for over 270 periodicals and journals. The library holds subscriptions to all standard online music research databases, including Music Index, Music Periodicals Database, Oxford Music Online, RILM Abstract of Music Literature, and Naxos Music Library, among many others. There are approximately 50,000 uncataloged volumes in the library.

The library’s archives contain several special collections of local and national interest. Of particular importance are: the Traipsin' Woman (Jean Thomas) Collection, the Isidore Philipp Archive and Memorial Library, the Hattie Bishop Speed Collection, and the Ricasoli Collection, a collection of over four-hundred eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century prints and manuscripts that were assembled by the noble Ricasoli family of Tuscany. Our Kentucky Sheet Music Collection, with an emphasis on music publications from Louisville, is the most extensive in the region. The Mildred Hill Collection contains the manuscripts of composer Mildred Hill, most well-known for composing the “Happy Birthday” song, of which we hold the manuscript.

The library also serves as the repository for all materials related to the world-renowned Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. The scores, sound recordings, and promotional material submitted by the entrants are available for study in the library and are loaned to other libraries throughout the world via interlibrary loan. The Grawemeyer Music Award has established a reputation for the U of L School of Music as a center for the promotion of twentieth-century music, and the Anderson Library is proud to build on that reputation.

In recent years, the library has worked to provide online streaming access to UofL School of Music audio and video recordings, including recitals, concerts, and special events through the Avalon Media System, an open-source software designed specifically for this purpose. Ranging from the 1950s to the present, and now containing more than 8,000 recordings, Avalon has become a vital research tool for students and faculty in the School of Music.

Approximately 1,000 items from the library’s collection are shared with other libraries throughout the United States and the world each year through our participation in interlibrary loan.