The Canadian Music Centre holds Canada's largest collection of Canadian concert music. The CMC exists to promote the works of its Associate Composers in Canada and around the world. The Centre was founded in 1959 by a group of Canadian composers who saw a need to create a repository for Canadian music. Initially the Centre focused on collecting and cataloguing serious musical works, developing a catalogue of music scores, copying and duplicating the music, and making them available for loan, both nationally and internationally. The Centre makes available on loan 18,000 scores and/or works by almost 700 Canadian contemporary music composers through its lending library. The CMC sells more than 900 CD titles featuring music of its Associate Composers and other Canadian independent recording producers.