The scores are part of the Clarence Easley Collection. The collection is named for Clarence C. Easley, former director of the guitar department at the San Francisco Conservatory.

"This is a wonderful project that is being funded by the Augustine Foundation," said Tony Gardner, curator of special collections and archives for the University Library. "When we are done, the Easley Collection, which contains a wide variety of guitar music scores from a unique period of American music history, will be available to a wider audience than ever before."

Easley settled in San Francisco during the 1920s. He joined the American Guitar Society in 1930 and began a longtime correspondence with Vahdah Olcott-Bickford, the founder of the society. Easley's letters are part of the Vahdah Olcott-Bickford correspondence files in the guitar archive.

While at the San Francisco Conservatory, Easley assembled a large music library of outstanding composers. The Easley collection of musical scores, along with his correspondence, is a major archival resource for research on guitar history in America from 1930 to 1056. The collection contains about 2,000 editions of guitar scores, including many early arrangements by Andres Segovia, considered by many to be the father of the modern classical guitar movement. The collection inventory also contains important early or first editions of works by Francisco Tarrega, Johann Kaspar Mertz, Fernando Sor, Giulio Regondi, Marco Aurelio Zani de Ferranti and others.

Over time, Easley's collection of scores was dispersed. However, Easley had made a microfilm copy of the collection, which was held at Saint Mary's College of California until two years ago, when the Oviatt Library made arrangements to transfer the microfilm to its International Guitar Research Archive.

There are 43 reels of microfilm and 3,300 index cards in the collection. The Augustine grant provides the money for the archive to convert the microfilm into a digital format.

The Augustine Foundation sponsors the study and performance of classical guitar. It was founded by Rose Augustine in honor of her husband, Albert. The couple had worked in partnership with Andres Segovia and the DuPont Chemical Co. to develop the first, successful nylon guitar strings. This is the third grant awarded by the foundation to the Oviatt Library and the guitar archive.