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

Cherubini's Best Wishes for the New Year

Approaching the end of the year, we would again like to call your attention to an intriguing musical document originally conceived as a kind of new year’s wish. However, whereas the piece by Carl Eberwein we introduced to you a year ago had formulated a series of friendly greetings to...

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Library sigla - A special RISM subproject from the beginning

The first RISM library sigla were created in the 1950s in preparation for the first volume of Series B (Recueils imprimés, XVIe-XVIIe siècles), eventually published in 1960 by Henle Verlag. The overview of sigla presented in the volume lists 920 music libraries located in 23 countries. Today, after 65 more...

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RISM Catalog fully switched to new technical platform

A beta version of the RISM Catalog based on the open source discovery system VuFind was released in November 2023. At the same time, access to the existing online catalog was initially maintained. On 9 December 2024, the old TouchPoint-based system will be discontinued permanently. The RISM Catalog now appears...

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Muscat Cataloging Workshop in Zagreb

The following has reached us from Lucija Konfic of RISM Croatia. Following several lectures on RISM cataloging offered to students in Zagreb and Varaždin, a public workshop about cataloging musical sources with the Muscat application was held in Zagreb on 11 and 12 October 2024. The event took place at...

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Bernard Huys In Memoriam

We have received the following from Marie Cornaz (Bibliothèque royale de Belgique - Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België): It is with sadness that we learned of the death on 12 October 2024 of our Belgian colleague and friend Bernard Huys (1934-2024), who served as IAML Vice-President from 1986 to 1989. He...

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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