Project Structure

In more than 35 countries around the world, one or more national RISM working groups participate in this project. In total, about 100 people describe the musical sources housed in their countries and transmit the results to the RISM Editorial Center in Frankfurt, which then edits and publishes the entries within the corresponding series. The technical infrastructure for the cataloguing is maintained by the RISM Digital Center in Bern.

RISM is recognized within the music world as the central place for the documentation of music primary sources. The RISM publications are divided into the following series:

• Series A: inventories alphabetically by composer
• Series B: bibliographies of materials organized by topic
• Series C: directories of music research libraries

Beyond these series, country groups manage projects that document extant libretti in their countries.

Funding

RISM has received financial support in part from:

• Kulturfonds der VG Musikedition
• Stadt Frankfurt am Main
• Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Bonn
• Union der deutschen Akademien der Wissenschaften
• The Ford Foundation, New York
• Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes (CNRS), Strasbourg
• Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, Jerusalem
• Otto-Wolff-Stiftung, Cologne
• National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington
• Stiftung für wissenschaftliche Forschung, Zurich
• VolkswagenStiftung, Hannover
• CIPSH / UNESCO, Paris