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De Musica / Johannes, Afflighemensis. 12th-century theoretical treatise. Manuscript on vellum.

Performing Arts Digital Collections:


Performing Arts Encyclopedia (PAE)

PAE is a guide to performing arts
resources at the Library of Congress.
See, hear, and explore the Library's
unsurpassed collections of scores,
sheet music, audio recordings, films,
photographs, and other materials.

The Performing Arts Reading Room is the service point for the broad and diverse collections of the Music Division at the Library of Congress. Numbering approximately 12 million items and spanning more than 800 years of Western music history and practice, these holdings include the classified music and book collections, music and literary manuscripts and related artifacts, music-related periodicals and microforms, copyright deposits, and five collections of musical instruments.

The Music Division also holds more than 500 named special collections in music, theater, and dance, which are remarkably disparate in size, content, and format. It should be noted with regard to the performing arts of theater and dance, only limited reference collections for these subjects are held in the reading room; most published works in these disciplines are located in the general collections of the Library. Those materials may be requested through the Main Reading Room in the Jefferson Building or the Business or Science Reading Rooms located on the fifth floor of the Adams Building.