The Olin Norwood collection consists chiefly of holograph French documents and correspondence, but there are also a variety of other materials, such as British, American, German and Belgian holograph, typed and printed correspondence and historical materials, pamphlets, newspaper clippings, pictures, and other materials. The materials in this collection cover topics such as the American Civil War and World War II, military issues such as the Battle of Kings Mountain or the bombardment of cities. Other materials discuss searching and seizing foreign vessels, people fleeing their country, slavery and the sale of enslaved peoples in areas such as South Carolina, and the collection also contains materials on poets and there is a picture from the world premiere of Gone with the wind.
This collection primarily contains published opera, oratorio, and musical theatre libretti, along with a few programs and Metropolitan Opera House Grand Opera Season guides. These are of particular interest in terms of their covers, publication materials, and performance information. Many of the libretti were donated by music critic Olin Downes; these contain handwritten research notes, drafts of reviews, miscellaneous programs and cast lists for the Metropolitan Opera Company. Publication dates range from 1804-1960s, and composers represented include Eugen D'Albert, Louise Aubert, J.S. Bach, L.V. Beethoven, Vincenzo Bellini, Georges Bizet, François-Adrien Boieldieu, Arrigo Boito, Benjamin Britten, Charles Wakefield Cadman, Francesco Cavalli, Gustave Charpentier, Domenico Chimarosa, Frederick Shepherd Converse, Walter Damrosch, Claude Debussy, Léo Delibes, Gaetano Donizetti, Frank Dumont, Manuel De Falla, Henry Fevrier, Carlisle Floyd, Alberto Franchetti, Vittorio Giannini, Umberto Giordano, Christophe Willibald Von Gluck, Charles Gounod, Henry Hadley, Jacques F. Haley, George Frederick Handel, Howard Hanson, Frederic Hart, Ferdinand, Hérold, Paul Hindemith, Arthur Honegger, Engelbert Humperdinck, Leoš Janáček, Sidney Jones, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Ernst Krenek, Reginald De Koven, Charles Lecocq, Franz Lehar, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Franco Leoni, Luigi Mancinelli, Pietro Mascagni, Victor Masse, Jules Massenet, Gian-Carlo Menotti, Isaac Hickman Meredith, Giancarlo Meyerbeer, Darius Milhaud, Italo Montemezzi, Claudio Monteverdi, Modest Moussorgsky, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jacques Offenbach, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Errico Petrella, Amilcare Ponchielli, Sergei Prokofieff, Giacomo Puccini, Henri Rabaud, Maurice Ravel, Ottorino Respighi, Ernest Reyer, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Lodovico Rocca, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Bernard Rogers, Ludwig Roselius, Gioacchino Rossini, Anton Grigorievich Rubinstein, Camille Saint-Saëns, Shanghai Shi Long jiang song ju zuo, Arnold Schönberg, Friedrich Smetana, Gaspare Spontini, William Grant Still, Deems Taylor, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, The Ukrainian National Chorus, Guiseppe Verdi, Giovanni Verga, Ignatz Waghalter, Richard Wagner, David Ward-Steinman, Carl Maria von Weber, Jaromir Weinberger Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Kurt Weill, Riccardo Zandonai, along with the United States Army.
The Orchestral Dance Music Collection comprises donations to the Warren D. Allen Music Library from various donors. A significant portion came from former flute professor Charles Delaney and includes materials formerly belonging to bandleader George Parry. It features jazz, ragtime, big band, and other styles of dance tunes that rose to prominence over the course of the decades from the 1890s to the late 1950s. Pieces in the collection are principally parts, although some also have scores, for a variety of orchestras and ensembles.
