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Art & Music

including Visual & Performing Arts, Sports & Games

Upcoming Cultural Arts Programs

The Art & Music Department, with the support of the Friends of the Berkeley Public Library, presents a range of free events throughout the year to encourage arts appreciation and participation.

Art

Art coverage ranges from the caves of Lascaux to the Pompidou Center. Art formats include circulating art slides and sumptuously illustrated art books. The book collection features a wide array of monographs on individual artists as well as art movements, some in oversized "folio" format brimming with colors. Special attention is focused on access to information on the arts of diverse cultures.

Music

The scope of the music collection runs from Albinoni to Zouk -- on compact disc, cassette, vinyl and score.  The rich A&M jazz collection, includes both re-issues of vintage recordings by the masters and present offerings from young contemporary musicians.  Music from all around the globe is present in the audio collection, in all formats.  Patrons can discover Nubian music as well as Tibetan chants, and explore merengue, calypso or tango.

The A&M Department of the Berkeley Public Library was the first public library in the greater Bay Area to offer a compact disc collection.  The CD collection PDF File, started in September, 1985, now includes over 14,000 titles.  The A&M music collection also includes about 6,000 vinyl records.  Classical, opera, jazz and popular music are represented.  You will also find printed music scores and a range of books on music biographies, theory and performance.

Performing Arts, Sports and Recreation

The A&M department is the place to explore dance styles, martial arts, windsurfing, film theory and acting techniques.  The collection includes books and magazines on dance, theater, film, television, sports, games and recreation.

More Resources

Slide Collection - Art & Music has the only publicly-accessible circulating slide collection in the Bay Area containing 25,000 images from early cave painting to contemporary installation art.

MagazinesPDF File - The impressive Greenwood Press jazz periodicals collection - A microfilm archive of the historical jazz periodical, containing reviews and events dating back to the 1920s.

Clip File PDF File - A collection of newspaper and magazine clippings with a special focus on artists, musicians and architecture in and around Berkeley.

Song Index - A collection of over 200 books of sheet music indexed by song title. Allows one to find easily lyrics/music to many popular, folk, jazz, Broadway and religious songs.

Themed Lists - Download lists of materials available in the Berkeley Public Library on a hard-to-find topics such as decorative arts, music and dance styles, and much more.