| San Francisco Public Library

The Bernard Osher Foundation Art, Music and Recreation Center offers material about the visual arts, performing arts, music, sports and recreation. The Center features information on artists, architects, musicians, actors, filmmakers, dancers and other arts professionals and athletes -- primarily those who have lived and/or worked in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Our Collection

Browse newspaper clippings and ephemera about San Francisco Bay Area topics by subject, artists and musicians or performing artists.
Dorothy Starr Collection of sheet music.
Etching and Engraving Picture File - a collection of 19th century, public domain lithographs available to scan or borrow.
Fakebooks Index - a database for fakebooks at SFPL, which are scores that contain melody lines, lyrics and chord progressions.
33 1/3 long-playing vinyl. Purchased pre-1990 of all genres, our collection includes world, folk, classical music, and spoken word recordings. Recently added vinyl is housed in the Audiovisual Center.
Orchestral Music Sets - a database to search for sets of orchestral parts available for organizations to borrow or individual to copy.
Programs of Bay Area dance, music and theater performances by local and visiting individuals and companies (1910 to the present).
Scrapbooks of local theater, dance and music programs and reviews (1850-1956).
The Steve Silver Beach Blanket Babylon Music Center houses a selection of the music monuments, complete works sets by major composers and rare music titles from the library's collections.

Search Tools

Music Research Tools (PDF)
Musical Scores Call Numbers - Use the Dewey Decimal System call numbers to search the shelves and the catalog for scores for vocals, instrumentals and ensembles owned by the library.
Northern California Composers - a finding list for composers active in the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California (1840s to the present)
Searching for Songs at SFPL (a research guide)
Researching Classical Music at SFPL (PDF)