Music and Arts Librarian
Music Manuscripts and Early Editions: RISM
RISM - Répertoire International des Sources Musicales
RISM is a vast project seeking to document musical sources in libraries, archives, and other institutions. It is an essential tool for anyone doing primary source research in the common practice period. Additionally, specialty indexes in Series B have expanded RISM beyond its core focus.
Until recently, RISM consisted of multiple parts that were accessed and used differently, but all of Series A and Part I of Series B have been combined into a single online database, now available without a subscription, and updated regularly.
- RISM-OPAC
The primary search interface for the RISM database, containing all of Series A and Part I of Series B. No subscription required.
- RISM Organization
Information about RISM, their activities, and publications.
Texts: Where to start?
Before diving into primary text sources, have a VERY good idea exactly what you are looking for. Be sure that you have explored secondary source bibliographies and reference materials, particularly the thematic catalog. Having citations in hand will make your search much easier.
If you don't have citations, base your search off the most detailed information you have: the narrower your location and dates are, the better chance you have of finding anything.
Full-text searching has made this process much easier and faster, and will continue to do so as more content is scanned. However, remember that OCR is far-from-perfect, particularly with older materials and foreign languages, so do not rule out something simply because it didn't come up in search. Try alternative spellings, other keywords, and as a last resort, go to the raw images. Additionally, know what resources are relevant, where they are indexed, and how they are accessed.
Disclaimers abound in this work. Here is a super basic guide on where and how to look:
| Time Period | Location | Resources |
|---|---|---|
| pre-1750 | Very few publications from this time. Will take specialized approach | |
| 1750-1900 |
West/Central Europe U.K./U.S. |
Music and Arts Periodicals: RIPM (Holy Cross access currently unavailable) HathiTrust - Digitized books and journals from U.S. libraries. Anything in the public domain is freely accessible and full-text searchable. |
| 1750-1950 | Germany, Austria |
MDZ - Munich DigitiZation Center - mostly Bavaria but increasingly serves as starting point for all German publications ANNO - AustriaN Newspapers Online - Austrian National Library has other Digital Archives as well |
| 1750-1950 | France | Gallica - All French-speaking areas as well as additional content held by the Bibliothèque national de France (BnF) |
| 1750-1950 | Italy | Internet Culturale - Attempts to aggregate all Italian library collections. No English version. |
| 1700-1950 | U.K. |
British Newspaper Archive- Search is free, but must pay to access articles. Additionally search individual titles of major publications in the library catalog. For example, The London Times has its own archive database. |
| 1750-Present | U.S. |
Chronicling America - Library of Congress Collections ProQuest Newspapers - Subscription only. Includes the New York Times, Boston Globe, and others |
For other countries and specific cities, always start with the National Library and/or the largest University. If they do not have digitized collections themselves, they will often link you to them.
For current or more-recent publications, normal search techniques (RILM, Google, etc.) will normally get you what you need, although newspapers from the past 50 years can sometimes be more difficult to access as their archives are behind paywalls.