Our catalog is a living document and we invite your input. Please don't hesitate to help us correct errors or in any way improve it for the public's use.

Vermont Artists and Friends of Vermont Music: PLEASE let us know of Vermont-made recordings that are not held in this collection. We'll do our best to bring them into our 'historic record'.

Filmmakers: The VMLS has been a secret of regional independent filmmakers for years as an exceptional and accessible collection of a great variety of independently produced music. Visit also the Vermont Film Commission.

The VMLS thanks Casey Rea and Seven Days Newspaper; Steve Lemcke; Kevin Shapiro; Pete Gershon, and Jimmy Swift at First Night Burlington for their significant contributions to our collection of Vermont-made music.

---

The VMLS Collection Catalog

Download the free Adobe Reader to view PDF documents. HTML (Web page) and PDF documents will open in a new browser window.

The VMLS collection catalog of studio recordings:

[ PDF | HTML ]

View or search the VMLS index of music reviews appearing in Seven Days Newspaper.

---

Digital Cultural Content at the VMLS

A goal of the Vermont Music Library is preservation of this cataloged music as digital cultural content. By digitizing this collection to an uncompressed (archival quality) file format the VMLS will enable an interoperable ‘cultural memory.' Digitization will also conserve the original material recordings, protecting them from the damage and wear inevitable with use by the public in our listening library. We will work toward making the collection searchable - and listenable - at workstations in the VMLS.

Central to our digitizing effort is the availability of massive and redundant digital file storage capacity (very large hard drives with backup functions). We are fundraising to purchase a RAID array. Because this digital cultural content program will steward an important — and emphatically unique — historical record of Vermont state culture, a best effort is being made to employ a premium technological and information infrastructure

This project is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council.

---

Collection Development Policy

The Purpose & Scope of the VMLS Collection:

The purpose of the Vermont Music Library collection is to preserve materials that document the history of Vermont-made music and to make these materials available to researchers and the general public. The library holds these materials in trust for future generations and therefore may be accessed at the VMLS only.

The major emphasis of the collection are recordings of music written, performed, or conducted by Vermont-based artists after 1949.

The collection houses materials in various formats including but not limited to: CD, DVD, cassette tape, digital audio tape, vinyl record, digital music file (WAV, MP3), video tape (VHS, 8mm, MiniDV), print photography, digital photography, books, posters, or handbills.

Gifts & Loans:

Gifts by artists of their own recordings are invited. Donations of collections are accepted provided that (a) there is a signed Deed of Gift form that legally transfers ownership of the materials to the VMLS, and (b) the donor does not require excessive restrictions on use. Under special circumstances items from the VMLS will be loaned to other institutions for exhibition.

De-accessioning Materials:

The VMLS reserves the right to de-accession duplicate material, those inappropriate to our collection, or those with restrictions on use. Disposal of materials is at the discretion of the directing archivist, with the approval of the Executive Director.

Cooperative Agreements:

Occasionally the VMLS enters into cooperative arrangements with other institutions in order to preserve historical materials and/or make them more widely available.

Download a Deed of Gift (PDF)

---

Statement of Intellectual Freedom

The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States is a foundation of liberty, affirming our society's right to freedom of expression.

The Vermont Music Library recognizes that all members of a democratic society may seek to experience the intellectual and artistic expressions of others in the course of personal enrichment and forming of the social and political judgments on which society is based.

The Vermont Music Library also recognizes every artist's fundamental right to unrestricted creative expression, and the right to public expression of this intellectual activity.

The Vermont Music Library participates in the defense of the right to freedom of expression, as do all libraries serving a free society as gateways to thought and culture by opposing censorship and resisting all pressures toward conformity.

The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.

IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.

V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.

VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.

Adopted June 18, 1948, by the ALA Council; amended February 2, 1961; January 23, 1980; inclusion of “age” reaffirmed January 23, 1996

---