The Library possesses a distinguished collection of primary and secondary source material for the study of Frédéric Chopin's music. The core of the collection is made up of early editions and facsimiles donated to the Rose K. Platzman Memorial Collection. The Olga and Paul Menn Foundation have provided additional funding for early editions, facsimiles, and scholarly books on Chopin.

The Chopin Early Editions online collection will consist of digitized images of all scores in the Library's Chopin collection. The scanned images of each page of the scores will provide scholars, bibliographers, collectors, dealers, performers, and students with new ways to study these important editions. At this time about half of the collection is available by searching the online catalog for individual scores or from the Chopin Early Editions website. Users can search or browse the website via a variety of data points, including titles, genres, plate numbers, publishers and place of publication.

A Descriptive Catalogue of Early Editions of the Works of Frédéric Chopin in the University of Chicago Library (Chicago: The Library, 2003), compiled by George W. Platzman, provides detailed bibliographical descriptions of all early Chopin editions in the library's collection. Copies of the catalogue are available from the University of Chicago Press.

Highlights from the Library's Chopin holdings were featured in an exhibit, Frédéric Chopin and his Publishers, which was on display in the Special Collections Research Center from February 2, 1998 to April 10, 1998. Click on the exhibit title for the complete text of the exhibit.