Collection Development Policy

The USC Music Library supports the research, instructional, and service mission of the University of Southern California and the USC Libraries by building, organizing, preserving, and providing access to and information about primary sources within the fields of music, dance, and dramatic arts, including but not limited to rare publications and archival collections.

We seek to collect materials that:

  • Help students develop as engaged world citizens by representing different peoples and areas of study
  • Sustain and encourage the academic and research endeavors of faculty, students, staff, and external scholars
  • Support class instruction
  • Promote critical thinking and primary source literacy
  • Reflect the diversity of our campus community and region


Our specific areas of collection development include:
 

Music

  • Choral and sacred music
  • Classical guitar
  • Composition
  • Early music
  • Jazz studies
  • Keyboard studies
  • Music industry
  • Musicology
  • Music teaching and learning
  • Popular music
  • Screen scoring
  • Strings
  • Vocal arts
  • Winds and percussion
     

Dance 

  • Dance and performance as activism
  • Dance histories of communities not previously represented through traditional practices
  • Dance in entertainment
  • Ephemera related to the evolution of contemporary and modern dance
  • Fashion and costuming
  • Hip hop, street, and social dance forms
  • Personal papers and documents from individuals who influenced dance history
  • Southern California regional dance history
     

Dramatic Arts

  • Ephemera related to individuals or performance troupes from underrepresented communities in theatre
  • Fashion and costuming
  • Historical playbills and scrapbooks
  • Historical theatre institutions from Los Angeles and surrounding areas
  • Musical theatre
  • Theatre in Los Angeles