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The Asbury Park Public Library houses what is believed to be the world's most extensive Special Collection devoted to Bruce Springsteen and his bands. The collection, dating from 1964 to the present, includes over 9,054 holdings in multiple formats: books, song books, tourbooks, magazines, fanzines, Internet articles, academic journals and papers, comic books, selected printed items, and newspaper articles.
This collection is intended to serve the research and informational needs of music fans, scholars, authors and others with a serious interest in Bruce Springsteen's life and career. For information about accessing or contributing to the Collection, please see Frequently Asked Questions; to see a list of our donors, please see Donors and Friends. Also available is an article about the Collection, "Greetings From Asbury Park Public Library", featured in the UK magazine WORD's August 2003 issue.
To date, the Collection has received items published in 40 different countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the former German Democratic Republic, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, UK, Uruguay, USA, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, and Zimbabwe.
"Special Collections" are developed and maintained by many public, academic, and other types of libraries. They organize and preserve significant source materials about a particular subject. Special Collection holdings are usually available by appointment; they are not part of the library's browseable/circulating collections.
The earliest donations to the Bruce Springsteen
Special
Collection were presented to the Library by the Springsteen fanzine
Backstreets Magazine,
as a demonstration of the fan community's support for Asbury
Park. Since
then, the Collection has evolved into a joint project between
the Library, the Friends
of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection, and Springsteen fans worldwide.
The project's organizers obtained the initial holdings by posting "want
lists" of essential publications
on the Backstreets website;
they received those items, and many others, from our generous
fan community.
A dedication ceremony for the new collection was
held on December 8, 2001. Prior to the ceremony, the Asbury Park
City Council passed a special proclamation honoring the day's
events, and stating the importance of this collection to the
city.
The newly assembled collection of some 1,000
holdings was presented to the library by Christopher Phillips,
editor of Backstreets, who said:
We believe this to be the largest collection of books and magazines devoted to Springsteen's career in any public library anywhere. The truly essential works by biographers, critics, scholars, journalists and fans are together in one place. The collection documents all phases of Springsteen's career and should be an indispensable tool for researchers and fans alike...To music fans around the world, Asbury Park is a special place, for its influence on Springsteen personally and artistically, and for the way he incorporates those influences into his music. This donation reflects our deep ties to Asbury Park, and our belief that music heritage can be a strong force in the community's future.
After Mr. Phillips' remarks, Mayor Kevin Sanders read the Council's proclamation to all present; then, to great applause, he cut a ribbon and declared the collection open.
And that evening at Convention Hall, Bruce Springsteen said:
I want to thank all you folks who showed up at the library today for our little section there... The collection has almost 1,000 books and magazines on myself and the band--more stuff than every place except my mother's basement!
