Netherlands Radio Music Library: a historical overview

Prior to the dark days of the Second World War, the five Dutch broadcasting associations (AVRO, KRO, VARA, NCRV and VPRO) had their own libraries, some housed in Amsterdam and others in the media capital, Hilversum. In 1941 the German Occupation Command ordered a consolidation of Dutch Broadcasting associations that extended to library facilities. The AVRO collection with its 14,000 scores was the largest of the collections thus the libraries were concentrated in the AVRO headquarters in Hilversum.

Plans to move the collection and the Broadcast Center’s Recording Collection to a modernized facility were realized in 1965 when the Music Pavilion (architects Merkelbach and Elling) was completed.

The Music Pavillion (on the left the Music Library, on the right the Sound Archive)

The daunting task of systemizing the Music Library’s catalogues was initiated in 1980. Less than thirty years later, the library prides itself on its state-of-the art catalogues and online search engines available to the public via internet since April 2006 (the English version since November 2007).