The Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) - International Inventory of Musical Sources - is an international, non-profit organization that aims to comprehensively document extant musical sources worldwide: manuscripts, printed music editions, writings on music theory, and libretti that are found in libraries, archives, churches, schools, and private collections. RISM’s over 1.5 million records can be searched at no cost through the RISM Catalog and RISM Online. RISM was founded in Paris in 1952 and is the largest and only global organization that documents written musical sources. RISM records what exists and where it can be found.

Upcoming events

IAML Deutschland conference in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 17-20 September 2024. Details here

Library Sigla

Search RISM’s abbreviations for libraries, archives and collections with historical music holdings

RISM for Libraries

Librarians, see here what RISM has to offer you

Muscat

All about Muscat, RISM’s specialized program for cataloging musical sources

News

Music of Funerals, Death, and Mourning

In view of the upcoming religious festivals and holidays – such as Halloween, Reformation Day, All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day, as well as the Sunday of the Dead – it seems fitting to take a closer look at compositions related to the topic of funerals, death, and mourning. The...

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Digitised music manuscripts made available online

The following originally appeared on the Music Blog of the British Library and is posted here under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence. Following the cyber-attack on the British Library last year, staff have been working behind the scenes to restore access to the Library’s digitised manuscripts. The Library has now...

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Updating RISM Series C

At the IAML Congress in Cambridge last year, the RISM Editorial Center announced an opportunity for our international community to update RISM’s Series C, the Directory of Music Research Libraries. The Directory is anchored in RISM’s objective to document the locations of musical sources worldwide. Series C provides descriptions of...

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2024 IAML Germany Annual Meeting in Frankfurt am Main

From 17 to 20 September 2024 the annual meeting of the German branch of IAML (International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres) took place in Frankfurt am Main. The German National Library was the main venue, and they along with the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Oper...

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Musical discoveries from English local archives

The previous RISM news item introduced the project Music, Heritage, Place: Unlocking the Musical Collections of England’s County Record Offices, led by Royal Holloway, University of London. This article introduces some of the sources recently discovered or catalogued in the project, to show the range of musical heritage found in...

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All the news

Upcoming events

IAML Deutschland conference in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 17-20 September 2024. Details here

Library Sigla

Search RISM’s abbreviations for libraries, archives and collections with historical music holdings

RISM for Libraries

Librarians, see here what RISM has to offer you

Muscat

All about Muscat, RISM’s specialized program for cataloging musical sources