The Vermont Music Library

VT Music Library Overview

Big Heavy World’s Vermont Music Library makes sure that Vermont’s music is preserved for future generations and honored in the present. This special collection has almost 5,000 recordings by Vermonters in its catalog.

Big Heavy World has been preserving and promoting the music of Vermont with a volunteer crew of mostly high school and college-aged students since 1996, gathering recordings from across the state and celebrating Vermont's musical artists through CD releases, live showcase events, the Big Heavy World web site and the Vermont Music Library. It’s a quirky, supercharged organization that puts civic-minded energy to good use on behalf of Vermont's living history.

Our collection of Vermont-made music recordings includes independent and major label commercial releases, concert recordings, artist demos, performance and interview videos, and studio archives.

The Vermont Music Library and Shop is a program of The Big Heavy World Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit corporation supported by gifts from individuals, foundations, and businesses. It is made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Este proyecto ha sido posible en parte por el Instituto de Servicios de Museos y Bibliotecas.

Special Collections

Attention Vermont Musicians!

Please consider contributing recordings that you perform on to the Vermont Music Archive collection. We are striving to create a comprehensive representation of music in Vermont and the effort would be incomplete without you! Our contact information is below, and we hope you will stop by to meet and leave your music with us in person. Newer recordings in the Vermont Music Archive collection are available to programmers of WOMM-LP 105.9FM 'The Radiator', Big Heavy World's community radio station. Send CDs to Big Heavy World, P.O. Box 428, Burlington, VT 05402-0428.

Our Mission

The Big Heavy World Foundation, Inc. is established to preserve the historical record of music originating in Vermont; to create economic opportunity for Vermont's musicians and the industries vital to them; to develop community among Vermont musicians and their patrons; and to accomplish this mission in a substance-free environment that empowers and educates youth.

The Vermont Music Archive was founded by The Big Heavy World Foundation, Inc. to preserve, celebrate and interpret Vermont's musical culture; serve as a center for scholarly and popular research through its archive; contribute to public discourse and understanding about the music community and the role of music in Vermont society; and contribute to Vermont's understanding of its cultural identity.

Our Philosophy

Big Heavy World honors the lives and voices of Vermont’s musical artists. Preservation of Vermont’s traditional and contemporary cultural legacy, inclusively and without prejudice, is a meaningful concern of its citizens.

The potential of Vermont’s youth is immeasurable. The values of self-worth, respect for diversity, positivity, civic participation, and independent thought are intuitively relevant to the well-being of young adults and worthy of fostering within an institution devoted to community-building and the art of this state.

Our Catalog

Our catalog is a living document and we invite your input. Please don't hesitate to help us correct errors or in any way improve it for the public's use.

Vermont Artists and Friends of Vermont Music: PLEASE let us know of Vermont-made recordings that are not held in this collection. We'll do our best to bring them into this 'historic record'.

The VMLS thanks Casey Rea, Dan Bolles, Jordan Adams and Seven Days Newspaper; Steve Lemcke; Kevin Shapiro; Pete Gershon, and Jimmy Swift at First Night Burlington for their significant contributions to our collection of Vermont-made music.

Digital Cultural Content at the VML

A long-term goal of the Vermont Music Library is preservation of this cataloged music as digital cultural content. By digitizing this collection to an uncompressed (archival quality) file format the VMLS will enable an interoperable ‘cultural memory.' Digitization will also conserve the original material recordings, protecting them from the damage and wear inevitable with use by the public in our listening library.

Collection Development Policy

The Purpose & Scope of the VMLS Collection:

The purpose of the Vermont Music Library collection is to preserve materials that document the history of Vermont-made music and to make these materials available to researchers and the general public. The library holds these materials in trust for future generations and therefore may be accessed at the VMLS only.

The major emphasis of the collection are recordings of music written, performed, or conducted by Vermont-based artists after 1949.

The collection houses materials in various formats including but not limited to: CD, DVD, cassette tape, digital audio tape, vinyl record, digital music file (WAV, MP3), video tape (VHS, 8mm, MiniDV), print photography, digital photography, books, posters, or handbills.

Gifts & Loans:

Gifts by artists of their own recordings are invited. Donations of collections are accepted provided that (a) there is a signed Deed of Gift form that legally transfers ownership of the materials to the VMLS, and (b) the donor does not require excessive restrictions on use. Under special circumstances items from the VMLS will be loaned to other institutions for exhibition.

De-accessioning Materials:

The VMLS reserves the right to de-accession duplicate material, those inappropriate to our collection, or those with restrictions on use. Disposal of materials is at the discretion of the directing archivist, with the approval of the Executive Director.

Cooperative Agreements:

Occasionally the VMLS enters into cooperative arrangements with other institutions in order to preserve historical materials and/or make them more widely available.

Statement of Intellectual Freedom

The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States is a foundation of liberty, affirming our society's right to freedom of expression.

The Vermont Music Library recognizes that all members of a democratic society may seek to experience the intellectual and artistic expressions of others in the course of personal enrichment and forming of the social and political judgments on which society is based.

The Vermont Music Library also recognizes every artist's fundamental right to unrestricted creative expression, and the right to public expression of this intellectual activity.

The Vermont Music Library participates in the defense of the right to freedom of expression, as do all libraries serving a free society as gateways to thought and culture by opposing censorship and resisting all pressures toward conformity.

The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.

IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.

V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.

VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.

Adopted June 18, 1948, by the ALA Council; amended February 2, 1961; January 23, 1980; inclusion of “age” reaffirmed January 23, 1996