Arnold Shaw founded UNLV's Popular Music Research Center in 1985, making it one of the world's oldest institutions of its kind. Shaw believed that Las Vegas's cultural identity rested on two pillars: gaming and popular musical entertainment. He therefore envisioned UNLV housing a popular music research center parallel to the university's Gaming Institute.

Today, the Arnold Shaw Center honors Shaw's vision, enabling the study of popular music through two major activities:

1)
Collecting, archiving, and making accessible historical materials related to popular music, including music manuscripts, memorabilia, sheet music, and recordings, with a special emphasis on Las Vegas musical entertainment.

2)
Providing a forum for scholars and practitioners of popular music to share their research and creative work with the UNLV community and the broader public. Our current efforts in this regard center on our annual lecture series, which welcomes prominent figures in popular music studies to share their knowledge with UNLV's community and beyond.