Growing Music Library at Upper Valley Music Center Needs Volunteers

Where in the Upper Valley can you find 10,000 sheet music titles?

The Music Library at Upper Valley Music Center (UVMC).

“For many years, UVMC has maintained a Music Library consisting of sheet music, instructional books, and scores. In the early 2000s, a volunteer cataloged the approximately 3,600 items of the collection into handwritten indexes,” said Ben Van Vliet, Executive Director of UVMC. “While the collection has been nominally open for use all along, its handwritten index makes it difficult to access. There’s a need for more volunteers to organize materials and digitize the catalog.”

The Music Library started slowly, and was originally organized by instrument then by composer. After UVMC moved from Hanover Street to 8 South Park Street in 2017, the library required reorganization. The basement was designated for music library storage and a state-of-the-art HVAC system, installed in 2021, provides temperature and humidity control.

Volunteers have donated their time to catalog sheet music by instrumentation — brass, violin, cello, flute, recorder, etc. — then by title and composer. But more help is needed as the donations keep coming in.

“There’s a lot of sheet music here,” said Ann Stephens, music librarian and volunteer. “On average, a box a week is donated, about 50 boxes a year.”

Volunteers try to catalog new items as they arrive, but some are just stored for the time being. “We can’t turn donations down until we know what is here,” said Stephens. “Sometimes a box of music has a missing part, and that part might show up when other boxes are cataloged. We are storing some things until they find their home.”

Stephens and her team would welcome assistance from community members.

“Whether you have any musical knowledge or not, our cataloging system is simple and you learn a lot just by handling the music,” she said. “Sometimes I’ll find something I sang or played, or a historical item I knew about as a music student, and it’s like finding an old friend.”

The Music Library is currently available to UVMC faculty and their students but Stephens hopes the archives of chamber, orchestral, choral, and band music will be available to the entire Upper Valley music community.

A three-year grant from the Choral Arts Foundation of the Upper Valley provides support for the digital cataloging and organization of the Music Library.

“A digital catalog will make the collection much more accessible to community music leaders, including community and school chorus and band directors, school teachers, and independent musicians,” Van Vliet said. “The cost of renting and purchasing music is significant, especially for larger ensembles, and access to a shared library will open new possibilities and reduce the cost of operating for local ensembles.”

Interested in volunteering? Go to uvmusic.org/volunteer