First released in 2005 and long out of print, The Music Library quickly became the definitive guide to the hidden world of library music—those rare LPs created exclusively for film, television, radio, and advertising. These albums were never meant for the public. Pressed in small quantities and distributed directly to production studios from the 1950s onward, they offered broadcasters an affordable source of signature sounds, resulting in recordings that looked and sounded unlike anything in the commercial music landscape.

Because these records existed outside the traditional music marketplace, designers were given extraordinary creative freedom, producing some of the most experimental and striking sleeve art of the era.

This newly expanded edition doubles the content of the original, showcasing 625 covers from 230 library labels spanning the 1960s through the early 1980s. Alongside the rediscovered artwork—including more than 100 albums not featured in the first edition—are fully updated, in-depth captions that provide essential context for collectors, designers, and music lovers alike. The Music Library remains an essential archive of an art form once overlooked and now celebrated.