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Institute of Popular Music Archive

The Institute of Popular Music Archive is extensive, significant and wide ranging and consists of materials gifted to the IPM since its establishment in 1988, and our aim is to make these materials publicly accessible.

The archive contains a collection of over 80,000 vinyl records and thousands of reel-to-reels, as well as CDs, cassettes, and a substantial collection of paper archives. Among the paper archives are collections of British popular music newspapers and of various music magazines and fanzines. The Archive includes some rare material and a wide range of special donations.

To enquire about the archive, please contact the IPM Archivist in the Special Collections & Archives team: scastaff@liverpool.ac.uk

The following articles provide further details of the archive and some of the materials it contains, as well as details on the IPM and its history: 

The Institute of Popular Music at the University of Liverpool

Interview with former IPM director David Horn published in Popular Music History (Volume 3, Number 1, 2008)

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  • The Robert Pring Mill Collection

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  • The Mikis Theodorakis Collection

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  • The Sylvia Patterson Jazz Collection

    A collection based on the work of Scottish author and music journalist Sylvia Patterson.

  • The Radio City FM Collection

    An extensive, specialized collection documenting the history of the Liverpool-based station, including thousands of items like reel-to-reels, CDs, cassettes, and paper archives.

  • The Karl Dallas Folk and Traditional Music Archive

    A collection based on British journalist, musician, author, playwright, peace campaigner, record producer, and broadcaster.

  • The David Friedman Collection

    A collection based on Austrian-born painter, portraitist, and graphic artist, David Friedman.

  • The Eddie Calvert Collection

    A collection based on English trumpeter, Albert Edward Calvert.

  • The Roy Openshaw collection

    A collection based on Roy Openshaw.

  • The Thompson and Gutman collection

    Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson are renowned political theorists known for developing the theory of "deliberative democracy,".

  • The Radio Merseyside Session Reel-to-Reel Collection

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  • The IASPM Archive

    The International Association for the Study of Popular Music.