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
- How to Cite RISM: RISM’s recommendations for citing music manuscripts and printed editions in publications.
- Finding Unica in the RISM Database: Find out how to find printed editions that are held by only one institution in the RISM database.
- How to use RISM Library Sigla: Explanation of RISM’s abbreviations for libraries, archives and collections with historical music holdings
- RISM Catalog help page
- RISM Online help page
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.
Read the following reports for examples of various collaborations with RISM:
- McGill University: Mapping the Musical Landscape of the Sixteenth Century (MML16)
- Music, Heritage, Place: Unlocking the Musical Collections of England’s County Record Offices Part 1, Part 2
- The Library of Congress’s Junior Fellows program: Enhancing Visibility of American Music Manuscripts at the Library of Congress
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:
- The ‘C Collection’ in the Music Archive of the Cathedrals of Zaragoza, by Carmen Álvarez-Escandell
- The “Periodico de musica” at the Biblioteca Nacional d’Andorra, by Joan Benavent Peiró
- The works of José Antonio Gómez y Olguín, by John G. Lazos
- The Archivio musicale Luca Moretti private collection, by Luca Moretti
- The “Master Muñoz Pedrera” collection at the Municipal Archives of Murcia, by Juan Francisco Murcia Galián
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.
- Musical anniversaries for the years
- Women composers
- 2017 and update and another update
- 2021
- 2025
- Dedicatees in printed music
- Women pianists
- New people in RISM in 2021
- Electronic thematic catalogs
- Composers in the public domain
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).