About the Music Collection in the SOAS Library

  • What's in the collection?
    • Books and journals on Asian, African and Middle Eastern music in Western and Asian vernacular languages.
    • Sound recordings: Asian, African and Middle Eastern music on CDs, vinyl discs, cassettes tapes and electronic databases.
    • Video recordings: Asian, African and Middle Eastern performing arts and documentary on video cassettes and DVDs.
  • Location

    Books on study of music in general, books covering more than one region of Asia, Africa or Middle East, and books on countries outside Asia, Africa and Middle East can be found on Level E between stacks 41 and 42. (classmark:  A780-789). Large books are located separately on Level E Stack 58 (classmark: L A780-L A789)

    Music in Asia, Africa and the Middle East can be found throughout the Library in each country or regional collection.

    For a full listing of classmarks and their location, please consult: http://www.soas.ac.uk/library/using/finding/location/

  • Notable collections

    Gramophone records, cassette tapes and slides (available for consultation upon request)

    • Gramophone records of Japanese songs and theatrical music produced between the late 1940s and the early 1950s
    • Slides: a set of transparencies of Chinese and Indian musical instruments
  • Special Collections

    Special collections are held in the Archives & Special Collections.

    Relevant collections include:

    • Bake collection : comprises field-notes and other documentation of South Asian music and folklore produced by Dr. Arnold Adrian Bake (1899-1963).
    • Rosencweig collection : comprises 175 items of books, scores, vinyl discs and cassettes covering all aspect of Jewish music, collected by Harry Rosencweig.
    • Tucker Collection : comprises of documents on Tribal Music and Dancing in the Southern Sudan, collected by Professor A.N. Tucker (1904-1980) from Ethnomusicology Committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

    To consult above, please contact: docenquiry@soas.ac.uk Tel: 020-7898-4180