Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University

The Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University is one of the world's oldest and largest research centers devoted to the study of American folk and popular music. Established in 1985 as a state-sponsored Center for Excellence, in 2009 it became a unit in the university's College of Media and Entertainment.

The archive holds over one million items related to American vernacular music traditions, in formats that include sheet music, song books, sound recordings, video recordings, manuscripts, photographs, periodicals, posters, and catalogs. The Center for Popular Music reading room offers a reference collection of scholarly books and maintains periodical subscriptions covering a wide range of scholarly, professional, and consumer publications.

The Center or Popular Music was founded in 1985 on the MTSU campus, duly funded by the State of Tennessee and MTSU. The Center is a state recognized Center of Excellence exemplifying the capabilities of higher education institutions to benefit the people of Tennessee by expanding research in the state and raising the stature of Tennessee statewide and internationally.

Since, the Centers founding it has been our mission to collect and preserve music history to provide credible resources to suit the research needs of college students, community members, and international researchers.