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Library Services

How to Locate Music

Sacramento Public Library carries music in a number of formats, including print, cassette, and compact disc. Circulating books on music and music scores are shelved together on the 4th floor at Central Library. Recordings are located on the 1st floor, as well as in Kid’s Place.

Online Catalog:

Use the online catalog to search for musical materials.

You may wish to narrow your search results. To do so, click on the "Limit/Sort Search" button on the screen. To limit your search to CDs or cassettes, choose "Material type": "Music CD" or "Music Cassette".  Or click on "System Sorted" and change it to "Year," and the most recently published items will be listed first. 

Card Indexes:

Discographies:

Internet:

A helpful music-related website online for finding information on performers, discographies, etc. is AllMusic. To locate song lyrics, you can use a search engine, such as "Google," type the song title in quotation marks along with the word "lyrics" in the search box. You can also locate information about a musical group or performer by typing the name, e.g. "San Francisco Symphony."

Music Pamphlet File:

This is a collection of uncataloged circulating music materials. It includes beginning instructional guides for various instruments, songbooks, opera librettos, and other miscellaneous sheet music. This material, organized alphabetically by subject, is located in a large file cabinet near the sheet music collection at the Central Library on the 2nd floor and may be checked out on the 1st floor.

Print Indexes:

Most subject indexes contain abbreviated source citations. The key to these abbreviations is generally found in the front of an index and will identify the full titles of the books cited.  To see if a cited title belongs to Sacramento Public Library, search the online catalog. Suggested subject indexes:

Sheet Music Outlets: