Rare books

In the spirit of the back-to-school season, this week’s blog features three historical pedagogical sources to pique your interest. Selected at random from our digital collection of rare books, these instructional manuals will teach you how to sing,… read more

Hidden in the Rare Book Vault at the Music Library is a collection of early-seventeenth-century madrigals for five voices. While access to the physical copy of this treasure is not possible right now, it is fully digitized and available online. The… read more

Although there were some efforts in the early 1800s to publish sheet music in Canada, the sheet music publishing industry did not take off until the 1840s. Early Canadian music publishers, including A. & S. Nordheimer (established in Kingston in… read more

The Music Library holds over 1,000 volumes in its Rare Book Room that were published or copied during the Classical period, including manuscripts, published scores and parts, sheet music rebound into binder’s albums, music histories, instrument manuals… read more

The mission of the Internet Archive is to provide “universal access to all knowledge.” While such an ambitious goal has yet to be achieved, the archive remains a rich source of material. In their… read more