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Creator
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division
Call number
Sc Re
Physical description
7,785 audio_recordings
Language
English
Preferred Citation
Schomburg Center LP record collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division, The New York Public Library
Sponsor
An anonymous donor funded preliminary processing for this collection. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation supported a research library-wide grant for the digitization, and funded the Schomburg for the description and production of the finding aid as part of The Next Century of Black Studies Project.
Repository
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division
Access to materials
Appointment preferred: Request an in-person research appointment.

The Schomburg Center LP record collection consists of 7,785 twelve-inch vinyl records that encompass the breadth of collecting and acquisitions by Schomburg's Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division since its founding in 1974.

Biographical/historical information

The Schomburg Center LP record collection encompasses the breadth of decades of collecting and acquisitions by Schomburg's Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division since its founding in 1974.

Scope and arrangement

The LP record collection consists of 7,785 and counting twelve-inch vinyl records. They include a breadth of musical styles, performances, and genres including blues, calypso, funk, folk music, gospel, hip hop, jazz, movie soundtracks, pop, R & B, reggae, salsa, soul, and theater productions; as well as spoken word, which includes speeches by historical figures, comedy routines, poetry and other readings, and educational recordings. Distributed by major labels and through independent means, the collection captures sounds of Black culture across the African diaspora from the 1920s through the 1990s.The collection largely focuses on the United States, but also on the African continent, the Caribbean, and other parts of the world.

The collection is arranged alphabetically by performer name, then album title, followed by non-alphabetical characters, and compilations. Performer names are formatted according to Library of Congress Authorities when available. Compilations are arranged alphabetically by title.

The Schomburg Center LP record collection is arranged in twenty-eight series:

Administrative information

Processing information

Collection inventoried byAllison Quammie and Andrea Battleground, reference librarians. Collection processed and described by Julian Gonzalez, reference librarian; Anika Paris, archivist; and Shola Lynch, curator. Finding aid published in 2024.

Using the collection

Location

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division
515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801
Third Floor

Access to materials

Appointment preferred: Request an in-person research appointment.