Finding Music: Music Catalogs at Yale and Beyond

Search our collections using the following tools:

  • Quicksearch unites several search services under one discovery interface.
  • Books+ searches across Orbis and Morris.
    • Orbis The Online Catalog for most of the library. Orbis contains the Music Library's books, periodical titles, scores, recordings in the Recordings Collection cataloged since 1981 and in the Historical Sound Recordings Collection cataloged since 2006, manuscripts and archival collections cataloged since 1981, microfilm cataloged since 1981, videos, CDROMs, Databases (Library-Licensed online resources). Orbis also contains records for music books, scores, recordings, and videorecordings in other Yale libraries' circulating, reference, and special collections. Consult this advanced tutorial to learn more about searching for music in Orbis.
    • Morris  The online catalog for the Law Library, includes many books and resources on legal aspects of music.
  • Archives at Yale contains online finding aids (that is, the detailed listings of folder contents) for the Music Library's and the American Musical Theatre Collection's (AMTC) processed archival collections, as well as collections in the Beinecke Library, Manuscripts and Archives, and the Divinity Library, which also include significant music holdings.  Search the Finding Aid Database to find references to special collections holdings that are not listed in Orbis. One hundred and seventy of the Music Library's archival collections are also briefly described in Archival Collections: A Checklist.  Paper copies of the finding aids are also available for most of these collections and are housed in the Reference Room.
     
  • RISM:  International Repertory of Musical Sources An international project to catalog music manuscripts, printed editions, and treatises through ca. 1825, listing library locations.  Includes Yale holdings in the Music Library, Beinecke Library, and Lewis-Walpole Library.  Our RISM library sigla are US-NH, US-NHub, and US-FAy respectively.  In some series, RISM provides more information than Orbis about specific works and composers represented within a manuscript or edition.
  • The Card Catalogs: The Music Library has retained six card catalogs that contain bibliographic records for manuscripts, microfilm, and sound recordings not yet listed in Orbis as well as additional information that may not have been included in the Orbis record.
     
  • Other lists of Library Resources at Yale: Lists and bibliographic citations for material not otherwise cataloged, for example, sheet music collections and sound recordings.
     
  • Catalogs Beyond Yale: Online catalogs and other databases that can help identify and locate material in other libraries.
 
Last modified: 
Thursday, September 3, 2020 - 2:26pm