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Arts & Humanities

Free Access Databases and Collections

All About Jazz

One of the most comprehensive jazz websites. Contains interviews, 

Library of Congress

Searches across and provides access to the more than 300 digital collections created by the Library of Congress. Includes photos, prints, drawings, maps, books, manuscripts, audio recordings, films, notated music, newspapers, and archived websites.

Billboard Magazine 1936 to 2014

Billboard is an American music magazine. It was first published in November of 1894 and is distinguished as being among the oldest trade magazines in the world

ChoralWiki

Home of the Choral Public Domain Library

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)

The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science.

Internet Archive 

Over 2.5 million full-text books online. Download free books and texts. The Internet Archive Text Archive contains a wide range of fiction, popular books, children's books, historical texts and academic books.

Jazz and Blues @ the Kennedy Canter

Kennedy Center Education provides resources and experiences that inspire, excite, and empower students and young artists, plus the tools and connections to help educators incorporate the arts into classrooms and learning spaces of all types.

Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, ca. 1870 to 1885

Consists of over 47,000 pieces of sheet music registered for copyright during the years 1870 to 1885. Included are popular songs, piano music, sacred and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and music for band and orchestra.

Mutopia

"The Mutopia Project offers sheet music editions of classical music for free download. These are based on editions in the public domain."

Performance Practice Review

Performance Practice Review (PPR) is a blind, peer-reviewed journal devoted to the study of Western musical performance practices. It is not confined to any historical period. Originally published bi-annually from 1988 to 1997, contributions to Performance Practice Review from 2006 onward will be published exclusively online.

Petrucci Music Library

International Music Score Library project "virtual library containing all public domain music scores as well as scores from composers willing to share their music without charge"

RISM: International Inventory of Musical Sources This link opens in a new window

RISM (Répertoire International des Sources Musicales) contains bibliographic records of music manuscripts written after 1600. The records include information in standard bibliographic categories as well as graphical images of over 638,000 music incipits. These primary sources are manuscripts or printed music, writings on music theory, and libretti. They are housed in libraries, archives, monasteries, schools and private collections.

University of South Carolina Music Library Digital Collections

Unique, digitized materials from the Music Library collections are accessible online through the Digital Collections repository.