Music Archives, Libraries and Museums

Arbiter of Cultural Traditions is a non-profit arts organization founded in 2002 as a means to continue the work of the former Arbiter Recording Company by saving performances of musicians whose work embodies our classical music at its height. Also recorded interviews with musicians (pianists)

Catalogues of Harvard University. Special collections on Indian, Ethiopian, Turkish, Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox music and many others. Only searchable, not accessible.

The National Library of Spain audiovisual collection is publicly available.

British Library Sounds presents 50,000 recordings and their associated documentation from the British Library’s extensive collections of sound recordings from around world and covers a wide range of recorded sound: music, drama and literature, oral history, wildlife and environmental sounds. Many recordings can be listened to by the general public, but staff and students at licensed UK higher and further education institutions can listen to all recordings online and download the majority of them for academic use.

*The British Library Sounds archive is currently unavailable. You can find information, and updates, on their blog (using the current link).

Virtually spanning the history of recorded sound, the Bob Pinson Recorded Sound Collection embraces nearly 200,000 sound recordings including an estimated 98% of all pre-World War II country recordings released commercially.

The very large sound archive & database of the Europeana platform. Downloadable music for free!

Your single access point to films, images and texts from selected collections of 38 film archives across Europe.

Music recordings available & downloadable on music topics.

Interviews and music performances.

This searchable filmography documents the work of some 1,000 major jazz and blues figures in over 25,000 cinema, television and video productions.

The films that truly resonate with us do more than just entertain. They inspire us, enrich us, and challenge our perspectives. Kanopy ensures that these films reach viewers around the world

The New York Public Library produces a range of interesting resources on audio and video.

Access online streaming video on music and artistic performances, including films from the National Film Board of Canada.

The Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, founded in 1899, is the world’s oldest sound archive. Its key tasks are to generate, collect and catalogue audio-visual research recordings from all disciplines and regions, to preserve them in the long term, and to make them permanently available.

Famous and large collection of music cultural heritage published in images, video, exhibitions, linked websites and catalogues.

The collections of the Österreichische Mediathek with audiofiles of music.