Music

UCSB Library is creating a new Arts Library by bringing together the Music and Art & Architecture Collections into a modernized space on the main Library’s 1st floor Mountain Side. 

The Music Library will permanently close to the public starting Monday, August 5. 

UCSB Library is creating a new Arts Library by bringing together the Music and Art & Architecture Collections into a modernized space on the Library’s 1st floor Mountain Side where the Art & Architecture Collection is currently housed. As part of the project, the Music Library collection and services will be moved from the Music Building to the main Library. 

The Art & Architecture space – inclusive of collections and study space – will be closed to the public for construction starting Monday, April 1. 

Project Will Combine Music and Art & Architecture Collections in Modernized Space in Main Library

UC Santa Barbara Library is planning a new Arts Library by bringing together the Music and Art & Architecture Collections into a modernized space in the main Library building. The project will bring together all library services under one roof for the first time since 1969.

In Fall 2022, the archives of the music and comedy duo Smothers Brothers were donated to the UC Santa Barbara Library’s Performing Arts Collection on behalf of the two brothers, Thomas and Richard Smothers.

On January 1, 2022, an estimated 400,000 pre-1923 sound recordings formerly restricted through copyright entered the public domain, thanks to the passing of the Music Modernization Act (MMA). 

The Grammy Museum Foundation issued a $10,000 grant to the UC Santa Barbara Library to preserve, digitize, and make accessible a portion of the groundbreaking radio broadcasts of the CBS Symphony conducted by Bernard Herrmann in the 1930s and 1940s. 

The Music Library now offers limited on-site research appointments for UCSB faculty and graduate students. 

We will provide browsing access to on-site Music print collections (books, scores, and journals).

Thousands of historic sound recordings held by UCSB Library will soon be freely accessible online thanks to a prestigious $349,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In an unprecedented collaboration, the UC Santa Barbara Library and UCSB Opera Theatre will present the American premiere of a work by a proven master of music and theater.

Both performances of the operetta — which was selected from the library’s Michael and Nan Miller Operetta Archive — will be performed in English by graduate and undergraduate students from the award-winning opera theatre program.

Plans are underway to bring the Music Collection to the main UCSB Library. Currently housed on the second floor of the former Arts Library, the Music Collection supports academic and performance programs in Music at the undergraduate and graduate levels, encompassing both Western and non-Western music.