A plan to make Auckland’s music heritage more available to the public has seen 17,000 items of the city’s music history indexed into a searchable database.

The collection dates from 1848, including programmes and reviews for concerts in the greater Auckland area and a fascinating insight into the cultural and social life of Auckland.

The project is run by the Auckland Library Heritage Trust, which supports the Sir George Grey Special Collections. The heritage trust says a $60,000 grant from ASB Community Trust last year will help the heritage trust preserve the collection and make it more accessible to the public.

Indexing the database will make it easier for researchers to track the beginnings of organisations such as the New Zealand Oprra and Auckland Choral, track the careers of prominent Aucklanders and a range of community singers, players, dancers and musical theatre performers.

The historical documents will also help people discover facts about prominent musicians who have visited Auckland in the past, as well as research records of community events such as concert fundraisers for soldiers, M?ori showbands and tertiary productions.

Public use of the Auckland Libraries has been increasing every year for the last decade and the amalgamation into Auckland Council has now opened up the Sir George Grey Special Collections to an even wider base of users.

The Auckland Library Heritage Trust says there is a growing demand for information from the music collection from researchers, authors, historians, musicologists and students.

However, older items in the collection are at risk of deterioration through wear and tear and inadequate housing and storage.

The cataloguing project aims to make the collection widely accessible, so researchers, writers, students and the wider community will be able to easily find and access information about Auckland’s early history and musical heritage.

The collection will also be linked with other heritage collections of music scores, sheet music, choral and orchestral music.

• Read more about the heritage trust