RISM at IAML: Access to Music Archives and an Update of RISM Series C

Thursday, August 20, 2015

The RISM Central Office is working closely with IAML’s Working Group on the Access to Music Archives to update RISM’s series C, Directory of Music Research Libraries.Series C is a project that began in the 1960s and has resulted in five published volumes so far. An update of this resource is urgently needed. The most recent updates were made for some European libraries in 2001 but the other volumes are even older, dating from the 1970s and 1980s. Any new update should take the form of a free, online database that is accessible to everyone.

AMA is concentrating its efforts on preparing a directory of research libraries and institutions with primary musical sources, and by using RISM’s series C as a starting point, the AMA directory will essentially be a revision of series C. AMA will start with the European countries and this update will be made in collaboration with the RISM Central Office and national groups and the national IAML branches. AMA met twice at the IAML/IMS congress in New York (June 22 and 24, 2015) and RISM had an additional planning meeting (June 23) with the AMA co-chairs, Klaas Jaap van der Meijden (Resonant, Belgium) and Jon Bagüés Erriondo (ERESBIL, Errenteria, Spain).

In the first session, presentations from Maria José González Ribot (Centro de Documentación de Música y Danza, Ministry of Culture, Madrid) and Adriana Cuervo (Institute of Jazz studies, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ) illustrated the challenges and opportunities in bringing together information about music repositories. Mapping the locations of music repositories, as seen in the Mapa del patrimonio musical en España, is an attractive way of presenting data and would appeal to users of series C as well. Jon Bagüés added his thoughts on updating the bibliographies on music institutions and including links to more detailed descriptions. Comments from attendees at the AMA sessions reinforced the importance of updating series C, making it available online, and involving partners in other countries who already have substantial information available on the repositories in their countries.

In the second session, Jennifer Ward (RISM Central Office, Frankfurt) talked about RISM’s role in this project: RISM will host the database using its new open source MARC-based cataloging program called Muscat, which is currently being developed and will be released in 2016. This Muscat development phase is an ideal time to integrate series C with its current index of institution authority files, meaning that Muscat can be developed to fit series C’s needs. Preliminary testing shows that Muscat is a viable home for series C. Klaas Jaap van der Meijden and Jon Bagüés talked about implementing the ISDIAH standards, ISIL codes, and MARC format, and initial discussions were held to determine mandatory, required, and optional fields. We also discussed how to note when updates to the database are made and how to organize the work when updating the data. Guidelines to inputting data for series C in Muscat will be developed this summer. AMA will meet again with RISM later this year. Information on how to participate will be available later.

Image: Manhattan skyline at night (courtesy J. Ward)

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