American Sheet Music, 1870-1885 is an addition to the American Memory Collection of digitized historical materials at the Library of Congress. In 1870, the US Congress passed copyright legislation that required the deposit of one copy of any copyrighted work at the Library of Congress. As a result, thousands of pieces of music were sent to the Library of Congress, and in 1896, the Library established its Music Collection with 400,000 items. The online collection currently includes 22,000 musical compositions that were registered for copyright between 1870 and 1879. Both catalog records and digital images of the sheet music are available, allowing users to search or browse by author, title, or subject, and view the complete musical notation. Descriptions of any illustrations on the sheet music are not included in the catalog records, so pictures can only be located by browsing. The Library plans to add an additional 23,000 titles to the online sheet music collection in the fall of 1999.