Although music sheets were readily available to purchase, they would not withstand the physical demands of a library collection. As a result, the music score collection consists primarily of music books, or songbooks that contain many individual songs or pieces of music. Customers quickly recognized the value of this resource making many requests for specific songs.

To meet this demand, the Arts and Recreation staff created a manual card system that would refer customers from the song to the songbooks that contained them. With the availability of a basic computer the manual system was replaced with an automated version in 1988. Since that time the music scores collection has become vital to customers and staff throughout the library system.

Today the CPL Sheet Music Database contains approximately 123,010 song entries in over 2,455 books. Finding songs just became easier on the Internet with the "Sheet Music Index" page. Customers now have access to the same computerized information that Arts and Recreation staff have been using for years.