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Music Department, Free Library of Philadelphia

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Music Department, Free Library of Philadelphia

Welcome to the Free Library of Philadelphia's Music Department page! Visit us today!

With tens of thousands of circulating scores, books about music and musicians, a Chamber Music Collection of nearly 30,000 part sets, and one of the nation’s premier collections of published sheet music – including piano pieces dating back to the 18th century – the Free Library’s Music Department is an essential resource for any musician, music student, or music lover in the Philadelphia region.

You can even listen to LPs and CDs from our diverse collection right here in the library. For a general overview of our collections, see the FAQ page here:
http://libwww.freelibrary.org/faq/faqsubcat.cfm?FAQCategory=35&subCat=35&namesubcat=General

For a description of our Chamber Music Collection, see this page:
http://libwww.freelibrary.org/faq/faqsubcat.cfm?FAQCategory=35&subCat=92&namesubcat=Chamber%20Music

For a description of our library’s sheet music collection, see this link:
http://libwww.freelibrary.org/collections/collectionDetail.cfm?id=15

03/30/2026

📚 NEW BOOKS PT 2 🎉

We welcomed 3 more boxes of books last week, with 38 more new books. Our library assistants are hard at work getting these new books on the shelves for y’all, but there’s now 88 of them to process. Thanks for your ongoing patience!

Slide 1: New books we’re particularly excited to unbox
Slide 2: Excerpt from “Vintage Country” that reminded us of our Folk Music programs with
Slides 3-5: Excerpts from “Traditional American Folk Songs from the Anne and Frank Warner Collection”.
Slide 6: Excerpt from “Let the People Hear It: 100 Years of Concerts at The Library of Congress,” showing an advertisement encouraging radio stations to play more Chamber Music for the public. Happy to report that ~30 years later our Chamber Music Collection is still much loved.
Slide 7: More books about vinyl records, maybe Librarian Jane will make a list for easy browsing.

03/20/2026

📚 NEW BOOKS 🎉

Our previous book vendor, Baker & Taylor, ceased operations in October 2025. Yesterday, we finally got our first large shipment of books from our new book vendor. We’re so excited!

We have 50 new books and scores we’ll be getting on the shelves in the coming week. Here’s some we’re particularly excited about!

Slide 1: books about vinyl
Slide 2: books about music/dance and politics
Slide 3: other books were excited about!

02/22/2026

CLOSURE ANNOUNCEMENT: The Music Department (and likely the whole Free Library of Philadelphia system) will be closed on Monday, 2/23, due to the blizzard. We hope you stay safe and warm! We will see you when it’s safe for us to reopen.

01/07/2026

Philly Loves Bowie Week (PLBW) is January 2-10! Are you celebrating?

David Bowie is one of Librarian Jane’s Problematic Faves! Their first Bowie experience was watching Labyrinth in high school, not any of his albums. They later got really into his androgynous fashion and Weird Alien Vibes. Their first Bowie vinyl experience was listening to their parent’s copy of Ziggy Stardust. It sucks he (allegedly) slept with a 14 year old as an adult 🫠

For PLBW, Jane visited colleagues in to read Holly Wilson’s zine, “In The Center Of It All: David Bowie’s Impact On My Life.” Because library workers are rad, they also pulled their whole David Bowie file for Jane to peruse.

You don’t have to be a fellow librarian to see pieces in the Print and Picture Collection! Anyone can send an email to [email protected] and request to see materials. They will set up a research appointment for you! Don’t be scared by the word research either- you don’t have to be doing Actual Academic Research to want to use the collections! It’s just what we call your appointment in Library Land 😊

For a full list of PLBW events, go check out And say hi to Librarian Jane if you see them at the non-library Bowie vinyl event tonight, 1/7!

10/20/2025

Hello dear listeners,

Thanks so much for your support of our DIY Discs: Cut Your Own Vinyl Record workshop series! We’re looking forward to having a great time with everyone 😊

🗒️ Our waitlist is currently CLOSED ❌

Librarian Jane has locked in our November attendees and will be reaching out to folks on the waitlist about what future session we can offer you a spot in!

Thanks for your patience, we do have over 130 people to coordinate with!

Lots of love from Library Land 💖

10/06/2025

Make a vinyl record with us!

The Music Department is partnering with to bring lathe-cut vinyl to

What you’ll make:
•a 7” record
•5 minutes of audio per side
•cut at 33 1/3 RPM
•decorate your own record sleeve

To learn more, check out our blog post ➡️
libwww.freelibrary.org/blog/post/5555

*This program was made possible through support from the Lydia Eloise Seibert Fund.

09/10/2025

✨Found in the stacks ✨

Through the magic of the Dewey Decimal system, The Muppets Show is shelved right next to Miami Vice in our soundtracks section (call numbers that start with 782.8).

Our copy is the 1977 Santa Maria Pressing for Arista Records.

🎶 Mahna Mahna 🎶

08/28/2025

Polls are closed and results are in… Vinyl Record Listening Club has been renamed Library Mixtape 💖

Thanks to everyone who voted! Library Mixtape won with 28 votes, runner up was Vinylphiles which had 25 votes.

Did you miss out on attending club? Here’s a Spotify playlist of the songs we played:

https://tinyurl.com/VRLC827playlist

07/19/2025

BREAKING NEWS: You can play the in the Music Department again!

Last summer our theremin took a fall and sustained injuries that made it too damaged to play! We are still hoping to repair the original but it may take even more time! In the meantime, our new Moog Theremini is out on a much sturdier tripod and is ready to make music with you! Stop by at anytime to try it out!

07/12/2025

*AOL voice* You’ve got mail! 💌

It took longer than expected as the library was closed but information about July’s Vinyl Record Listening Club meet is out! Our theme is Live Aid: 40 Years Out. We will be meeting from 5:30-7:30pm on 7/30! Check your inbox for more info.

Librarian Jane highly recommends tuning into tomorrow to hear their special Live Aid 40th Anniversary broadcast by and ! It will be so exciting to hear about the Philly Live Aid experience from folks who attended, as well as hearing songs in their original setlist order! The broadcast will be from 10am - 8pm. You can tune in for free on your radio (88.5FM), online at xpn.org, or on the WXPN app.

Pictured: Two clippings from the Music Department’s vertical file collection on Live Aid! Slide 1 is Rolling Stone Magazine Issue 455, “A day to remember” by Pete Hamill. Slide 2 is Rolling Stone Magazine Issue 452/453 (double issue), “All-star line up set for Band Aid shows” by David Fricke. These and more will be available to peruse during club!

07/09/2025

Hello Philly! You probably noticed that your local library was closed from July 1-8th. This was due to a strike from our coworkers in AFSCME DC33, which in Library Land includes our library assistants, security guards, custodians, and more. These are the folks who will check you out a book, clean up after each day, help us set up for a program, and keep us all safe inside the building.

A strike is “an organized and intentional stoppage or slowdown of work by employees, intending to make the employer comply with the demands of the employees. For example, a strike may seek higher pay, better benefits, or safer working conditions.”(Cornell Law School). The DC33 strike ended today, July 9th, and we are reopened to the public. We are still catching up on a week’s work of work so please be patient with us! NOTE: If you had a hold for a musical instrument expire while we were closed, we have extended your hold until 7/16.

***

The labor movement has a rich musical history. Songs or chants can often be heard at a picket line. You may have heard “Solidarity Forever” written by Ralph Chaplin making the rounds in the last week. Shout out to who stopped by the Parkway Central Library picket on Saturday to play some songs out of Music Department songbooks on the autoharp.

We’ll have a display of labor and union music out on display through the end of the month. Keep an eye out for some programming around protest songs, union songs, and American Folk music!

Welcome back! 💖

06/26/2025

Do you recognize these albums?

Someone very generous left us a donation last night but left it with a non-music librarian. If this was you- TYSM 💖 We finally have hip hop in our vinyl collection 🙌🏻

Send us an email at [email protected] if you would like a donation form for posterity (or for your taxes!)

Address

1901 Vine Street, 1st Floor
Philadelphia, PA
19103

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Telephone

(215) 686-5316

Website

http://www.freelibrary.org/

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