The general collections of the Music Division contain published and unpublished musical scores, as well as music-related books and periodicals. The Library of Congress Classification System uses letters and numbers to organize individual collection items so that they are shelved with similar materials in our stacks. Items in the Music Division's general collections carry call numbers as outlined in the Class M schedule, broadly organized into three subcategories:

M — music scores

ML — literature about music

MT — works on musical instruction and study

Learn more about the classification schedules and the Library's online catalog using the links below:

• Library of Congress Classification Schedules
  See print-ready PDF files of Library of Congress classification schedules, including the Class M schedule.
• Library of Congress Online Catalog
  Search the general collections in the Library's Online Catalog by composer/author name, title, subject, or even call number.

Keep in mind that the Library's Music Division holds over 25 million items in its collections, and only a portion of these materials are individually cataloged; all of our collections, however, are organized, classed, and searchable by on-site librarians. If you have trouble finding a specific score in our online catalog, contact our reference librarians via our Ask A Librarian email reference service for assistance.