Code
English | Deutsch | Français

RISM for Researchers

RISM has long been the cornerstone of musicological projects. The following pages will help you if you are using RISM for research, scholarship, university projects, or data analysis.

Guides

Research projects

RISM can serve as a partner in research projects on a small or large scale. The extensive pool of RISM data can launch research from a variety of starting points, such as by composer, repertoire, genre, time period, geographic area, or material type. When partnering with RISM, project participants have direct access to our database and cataloging program. There is therefore no need to develop separate cataloging systems or databases. Records are published in the international RISM database, and data can be extracted for use elsewhere.

Collaborating with RISM

Read the following reports for examples of various collaborations with RISM:

Researchers focusing on music by a particular composer or preserved at a certain institution can catalog the music in RISM, ensuring that the musical sources can be explored by an international audience. The RISM records can be referenced in university theses and publications, or published as separate catalogs. Here are some examples:

A subset of RISM records can be gathered and printed as a separate catalog. Such catalogs may be needed for all sorts of reasons: to publish a printed catalog of the holdings of a collection, to provide funding agencies and sponsors with proof that a promised project was successfully completed, or simply to provide an overview of the records in the course of research. While the production of such a catalog requires some fluency in IT matters, musicologists and librarians who can draw on IT assistance at their home institutions can easily make use of this opportunity to present the results of their work outside of the main RISM online database. Instructions can be found on our Data Services page.

The following catalogs were created based on RISM records. A number of the publications are available online.

Austria
Eva Neumayr and Lars Laubhold, eds., Thematischer Katalog der musikalischen Quellen des Dommusikarchivs Salzburg (A-Sd), Reihe A. Vienna: Hollitzer Verlag, 2018. (Read our announcement here.)

Czech Republic

  • Catalogus collectionis operum musicalium ex possessione familiae Strachota in Tinez. Edited by Eliška Šedivá, translation of the introduction by Andy Letham. Catalogus artis musicae in Bohemia et Moravia cultae, Artis musicae antiquioris catalogorum XIII/1-2. Prague: National Library of the Czech Republic, 2023. (Read our announcement here.)
  • Collectio operum musicalium e possessione p. Barnabae Weiss. Edited by Jana Vozková and Eliška Šedivá,translated by Andy Letham. Catalogus artis musicae in Bohemia et Moravia cultae, Artis musicae antiquioris catalogorum XII. Prague: Národní knihovna ČR, 2021. (Read our announcement here.)
  • Catalogus collectionis operum artis musicae comitis Clam-Gallas. Edited by Eliška Šedivá, translation of the introduction by Andy Letham. Catalogus artis musicae in Bohemia et Moravia cultae, Artis musicae antiquioris catalogorum X/1-4. Prague: National Library of the Czech Republic, 2018. (Read our announcement here.)
  • Catalogus collectionis operum artis musicae de Monasterii Siloensis. Edited by Pavla Semerádová and Eliška Šedivá. Catalogus artis musicae in Bohemia et Moravia cultae, Artis musicae antiquioris catalogorum 9/1-2. Prague: Národní knihovna České republiky, 2016. (Read our announcement here.)

Germany
Numerous catalogs have been created for various collections in Germany. Please see the full list of volumes in the series “Musikhandschriften in Deutschland: Kataloge ausgewählter Sammlungen” on the RISM Germany website.

Data sets

The RISM records can be used in data analysis. The data can be accessed from the RISM Catalog’s Data page or by using the RISM Online API.

We have also published subsets of the data in spreadsheets that can be used for research. The links below are to our blog posts for context, and the spreadsheets can be downloaded from the posts.

Send us your feedback

If you have feedback about any records in the RISM database, please let us know by sending an email to contact@rism.info or through any record in the RISM Catalog (“Send a comment on this record” on the left-hand side of the record) or RISM Online (“Report an issue” at the bottom of the record).