SARASOTA MUSIC ARCHIVE INC Information

The Sarasota Music Archive is part of the Sarasota County Library System, and is connected to the Special Collections Department of the Selby Public Library. It is one of the leading reference collections in the field of music, containing an enviable cache of several hundred thousand recordings, tapes, sheet music, books, and memorabilia. Membership dues and private donations help to fund the archive. Originally established in 1980, the Archive was begun by a group of dedicated volunteers in a strip mall storefront. It soon grew enough to move into its own building and was eventually merged with the Selby Library in August of 2000. The collection encompasses classical, opera, jazz, popular, folk, and international music, as well as spoken word and video recordings. Recordings may be in the form of Edison wax cylinders, one or two-sided shellac disks, long-playing vinyl records, cassette tapes, 8-track tapes or compact disks. There are several listening stations available where the recordings can be perused. There are also special collections, such as the complete recordings of opera singer Enrico Caruso, the band music collection of Merle Evans, as well as thousands of hours of radio programs including "The Listening Room," The "Young Artist" Series and "Woody's Children" by Robert Sherman, former executive producer of the radio station WQXR-FM in New York City. More than 50 volunteers donate hundreds of hours per month to run the Sarasota Music Archive. They are all music lovers from various backgrounds including scholars, accountants, doctors, and musicians. Volunteers are responsible for cataloging the material and creating and maintaining the computer databases. They also stock the shelves, do mailings, answer the phones, plan programs and events, and provide assistance to the public. We have no paid staff. Most of the recordings and sheet music in the collection have been donated. The Sarasota Music Archive raises money by selling donated materials that are not needed for the collection at very ...