Find Scores 
Music scores are produced in an extremely wide range of formats, languages, and editions, and they are often found in various shelving locations (or even completely different rooms) throughout a library’s space(s). Additionally, music scores from many living composers today are available exclusively as digital downloads (PDF-only); the new-music marketplace makes this scenario more and more common, yet negotiating the acquisition of, and usage rights / permissions for, a digital music score can be tricky for libraries and library users to navigate, which is to say nothing of long-term digital storage and access challenges. All told, this can make the discovery and use of music scores via a library both interesting and complex.
Need further help, beyond the guidance on this page? Reach out to your Performing Arts Librarian, Sam Crawford (scrawford@calarts.edu).
In the CalArts Library, music scores can be found across various areas or holding locations of the Library's collections, such as the main stacks (referring to the largest portion of the collection which you can freely browse, including Oversized and Folio materials), the Performance Scores Collection, Library Reserve (including Oversized and Folio scores on Reserve), Special Collections, and even our Artists' Books Collection.
With the exception of materials held in the Performance Scores Collection, most of our music scores are organized by Call Number within the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) system and can be found within Class ‘M.’ Here's a shortened LCC "quick-start" guide for those:
Music Scores (M)
The main stacks contain an extremely wide range of scores, from pocket scores and study scores, to scores for chamber works, to vocal scores and full orchestral scores; in some cases, a work's full score + its respective parts (works such as duets and trios, for example) are available in the stacks.
Behind the Library's main (Circulation) desk is an area known as Library Reserve, which – in addition to holding materials placed on Course Reserve – also holds materials which are rarer, more fragile, more expensive, or otherwise more difficult to replace; this includes a fair number of music scores both in standard and non-standard sizes.
Near the Reserves area, but tucked away from public view, is the Performance Scores Collection, which currently holds close to 10,000 music scores for users to borrow, study, and – more specifically – use for rehearsal and performance. Because they include all of the individually printed parts for the players needed, performance scores are housed separately from other music scores in the Library to better ensure protection and maintenance. Most scores and parts in the Performance Scores Collection are placed in drawers, laying flat, rather than upright on shelves (this helps “keep together” all the separate parts with their respective full scores). These items have special Call Numbers beginning with the prefixes "C," "P," "V," or – in some cases – simply a number. Here's are a few examples of works and Call Numbers found within our Performance Scores Collection:
III, for double ensemble (1967) — Harold Budd
Call Number: Performance Oversize C592
Fear/Release, for percussion quartet (2017) — Ellen Reid
Call Number: Performance Scores C2514
Hey When I Sing These 4 Songs Hey Look What Happens, for SATB chorus (1986) — James Tenney
Call Number: Performance Oversize V411
Our Special Collections contains extemely rare, original, and/or fragile scores, including autographed copies of scores from composers such as Edgard Varèse (1883–1965), Aaron Copland (1900–1990), Lou Harrison (1917–2003), Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001), György Ligeti (1923–2006), and Steve Reich (b. 1936). An additional music collection of note for the CalArts Library would be the John Cage Collection, which is one of the largest library collections of scores by John Cage in the United States, thanks to a generous, initial donation of scores from The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
Lastly, our Arists' Books Collection contains a number of "scores" which are considered not only a means of notation or expression but also a work of art in book form. Artists’ books range from fine craft letterpress works to one-of-a-kind or limited-edition art objects presented through a wide variety of materials and book formats. These include handmade items, books / scores designed and created by CalArts artists (students, faculty, and alumni), and materials created by conceptual, Fluxus, and feminist artists during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
Format
Some music scores in the CalArts Library are even available in digital format, as eScores.