The Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, is a research center devoted to the study and scholarship of popular music in America. The Center maintains an archive of research materials stretching from the early eighteenth century to the present and develops and sponsors programs in vernacular music. Anyone is welcome to use the CPM's collections and services for research and scholarly pursuits.
The Center for Popular Music was established in 1985 as a state-sponsored Center for Excellence. In 2009 it became a constituent unit in MTSU's College of Mass Communication, where it supports both student development and faculty research.
The Center's scholarly mission is to promote research in American vernacular music, and to foster an understanding and appreciation of America's diverse musical culture and its global reach. To this end, the Center
maintains a large research library and archive
presents public programs that interpret various aspects of American vernacular music
engages in original research projects and disseminates the results of research via publications in various media
maintains a state-of-the-art audio preservation, transcription, and reproduction lab
http://popmusic.mtsu.edu/about.html
Last year the Center for Popular Music installed a new search interface whereby researchers can search special collection materials. You can now search in one user friendly interface for over 90,000 manuscripts, periodicals, photographs, posters, playbills, programs, rare books and scores, sheet music, song broadsides and trade catalogues. http://popmusic.mtsu.edu/collections/default.aspx