Institute of Jazz Studies

The Institute of Jazz Studies (IJS) is the largest and most comprehensive library and archives of jazz and jazz-related materials in the world. It is located on the fourth floor of the John Cotton Dana Library at Rutgers University-Newark in Newark, New Jersey. The archival collection contains more than 100,000 sound recordings on CDs, LPs, EPs, 78- and 75-rpm disks, and 6,000 books. It also houses over 30 instruments used by famous jazz musicians.

In 2013, the Institute was designated a Literary Landmark by New Jersey's Center for the Book in the National Registry of the Library of Congress. It is the fifth place in New Jersey to be given this designation, after the Newark Public Library, Paterson Public Library, the Walt Whitman House and the Joyce Kilmer Tree, which is located at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

Major collections housed in the Institute include the Jazz Oral History Project, the Mary Lou Williams collection, the Women In Jazz collection, the Benny Carter Audio collection, and the Benny Goodman Audio collection.

In 1952, the Institute of Jazz Studies was founded by Marshall Stearns, a jazz scholar, literature professor, and author. Stearns had a plan for a jazz institute as early as 1949, which he thought to call the "Institute of Modern American Music". It was originally located at his apartment at 108 Waverly Place in New York City. Marshall Stearns described the Institute of Jazz Studies' mission in 1953 as the following:

The general aim of the Institute of Jazz Studies is to foster an understanding and appreciation of the nature and significance of jazz in our society. More specifically, the Institute proposes to work toward this goal by pooling the knowledge and skills of authors and musicians, who have pioneered in the field of jazz, with those of social scientists and other experts whose techniques and studies may be brought to bear on the subject. In this manner, jazz and related subjects will be given the range and depth of scholarly study which they so richly deserve, and a vital but neglected area in American civilization will be illuminated.

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