After three decades of amassing a record collection of considerable size, Glenn Howard formed a non-profit in 1992 to support his work of providing musicians and bands with unparalleled source and reference material. With philanthropic investment from a few major donors and foundations, the AMHF library has grown to over half a million pieces. In 2002 the bulk of the collection was moved to rural Washington State where it has been housed since. This has been a great location in that the library has existed in donated storage, thereby freeing up funds for new acquisitions. The AMHF has up until now been solely focused on preservation, and presently turns its attention to building organizational infrastructure and capacity to serve its mission.  

The AMHF Board feels that to better realize our mission, we must prioritize making the library accessible to a wider, more diverse group of people, and believes that one of the best ways to do this is to move the core archive to the San Francisco Bay Area. The AMHF is currently seeking a permanent home for the library in California in the immediate future where it can further digitize its growing collection into a comprehensive research data base and continue the important work of preserving the recordings of the past for the people of the future.