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This article aims to introduces generalist librarians who have music among their subject responsibilities to jazz fake-books as a library resource.

The article begins with a review of jazz as a subject in the professional literature of both librarianship and music education. The second section discusses the origin and history of fake-books, while the third offers suggested selection criteria. This is followed by a bibliography of recommended fake-books, all of which were in print at the time of writing, along with information to facilitate the acquisition process.

Although fake-books in electronic form have become available in recent years, they require an investment in both hardware and software on the purchaser's part. They also carry end-user licensing agreements that make them impractical as library purchases. Print fake-books remain a worthwhile area of study for collection development librarians.

In preparing this article the author discovered that jazz as printed music has been largely ignored in library literature, and has been treated only occasionally in scholarly literature in general.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce librarians who are not necessarily music specialists to four books on a subset of American popular song literature (“the American songbook” or “standards”), all of which assume some degree of musical literacy on the reader's part. This assumption sets these books apart from most writing on the subject, and the paper suggest reasons why this is the case.

The books are grouped into pairs. The first two books are by a single author whose previous scholarship may make his interest in the American songbook seem surprising. In the other pair the second book is both a continuation of the first and a response to it. In both pairs the earlier book breaks new ground.

All four books should be regarded as essential parts of a library's music literature collection. The first book discussed is more technical than the others, but its pioneering status makes it a landmark.

The author's research indicates that the oldest of the books considered was not discussed in scholarly journals until many years after its publication, while the most recent appears to have received only glancing consideration in peer‐reviewed literature.