• Founded in 1904 by Hiram Watson Sibley, philanthropist and son of the Western Union magnate, Hiram Sibley, originally intended as a circulating library for the entire Rochester public.
• Merged with the Eastman School of Music in 1921, at that time occupying one room on the ground floor of the Eastman School’s main building.
• Moved into a new building on Swan Street in 1937, the first building ever built specially to house a music library at a U.S. institution of higher learning.
• The collections were moved into Miller Center shortly after this building’s opening in 1989, now containing approximately 750,000 items (including substantial manuscript, print, and audio archived holdings), the library is the largest academic music library in the United States.
• Has been led by four directors:
Barbara Duncan (1921-47)
Ruth Taiko Watanabe (1947-84)
Mary Wallace Davidson (1984-99)
Daniel Zager (2000- )
