Improving Storage, Access, and Sustainability of American Vernacular Music Collections

FAIN: PF-260786-18

Middle Tennessee State University (Murfreesboro, TN 37132-0001)
Gregory N. Reish (Project Director: December 2017 to September 2021)

A storage, shelving, and lighting renovation project for an archival collection documenting American vernacular music.

This project involves installation of custom-sized compact shelving and new lighting in the archival storage facility of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University, one of the nation’s premier collections of research materials documenting the full breadth of American vernacular music. The collections comprise manuscripts, sound recordings, video recordings, sheet music, songbooks and other rare books, instructional materials, photographs, performance documents, serials, and other items. Robust recent growth of the collections has created challenges to sustainability and institutional resilience that will be ameliorated by these capital improvements. With a total cost of $408,189, the project will allow rare materials to be sustainably stored, better organized, and effectively guarded against fire and other perils while improving accessibility for staff and, by extension, the Center’s thousands of annual patrons.