News archive – New at RISM
Popes in RISM
On 8 May 2025, Robert Francis Prevost was elected the 267th head of the Roman Catholic Church. The new pope chose the name Leo XIV, and celebrated the inauguration mass of his pontificate on May 18. Of the approximately 150,000 personal names in the RISM database, composers tend to receive...
28 May 2025
Private collections and libraries
The following contribution presents the first part of a two-part news item meant as a first introduction to private collections and libraries. RISM currently (as of 13 May 2025) lists 9,122 library sigla. Of these, 637 refer to private collections or libraries, i.e. just over 7 % of all our...
15 May 2025
Finding Unica in the RISM Database
The ability to trace the distribution of musical sources is one of the strengths of the RISM database. Music manuscripts are by their very nature unique, while any given printed edition potentially exists in multiple copies. Finding those printed editions that have only survived in a single known copy has...
2 May 2025
How to Cite RISM
Many publications, whether online or in print, use their own style guides. However, citation styles frequently do not capture the nuances of historic music manuscripts and printed editions, making it difficult to identify the item with absolute clarity. RISM has recommendations for researchers and librarians when citing musical sources, including...
24 April 2025
EarlyMuse Report Available Online
Last May several representatives of the larger RISM community traveled to Wrocław to participate in a three-day meeting of the EarlyMuse network that seeks to establish “A new ecosystem of early music studies.” While we already published a brief account of this event, it may be of interest for many...
27 March 2025
New Website for RISM Cataloging Guidelines
The RISM Editorial Center announces the publication of the RISM Cataloging Guidelines on a dedicated website developed by the RISM Digital Center, guidelines.rism.info. The guidelines are RISM’s rules and procedures for describing historical musical sources, and are adapted for use in the cataloging program Muscat which is used by RISM...
27 February 2025
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...
12 December 2024
Updating RISM Series C
At the IAML Congress in Cambridge last year, the RISM Editorial Center announced an opportunity for our international community to update RISM’s Series C, the Directory of Music Research Libraries. The Directory is anchored in RISM’s objective to document the locations of musical sources worldwide. Series C provides descriptions of...
17 October 2024
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The Music Manuscripts of the Music Collection of the Austrian National Library in RISM
We have received the following from Christa Traunsteiner, deputy head of the Music Collection of the Austrian National Library. Since last year, RISM users have had access to a large part of the descriptions of the manuscripts kept in the Department of Music of the Austrian National Library. Specifically, the...
5 September 2024
Statement on Current Media Reports Concerning the Financial Perspectives of RISM after 2025
Over the past few days, reports and opinion pieces on the current and future situation of the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) have been circulating in various media. The catalyst was an article by Christiane Wiesenfeldt in the Feuilleton section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (F.A.Z.) published in print...
14 August 2024
