Finding Old Musical Sources - RISM is Online!

Great News from RISM!

If you research or play music from earlier times, you'll know how important it is to see the sources that our forebears composed, published and played from.  

Nowadays, the first problem is locating these materials!

For printed publications, we have Copac (British national and universities combined ('union') catalogue.  There's also WorldCat, which pulls together library holdings particularly from the USA and the UK, regardless of public or academic affiliation.

But there's nothing quite like the fabulous RISM, the Online Catalogue of Musical Sources that locates printed and manuscript music from worldwide locations.  It was a really useful resource when it was just a series of printed books, but now the free RISM Online Catalog offers online access to series A/I, A/II, and years 1500-1550 of B/I.  (See the RISM Publications page to understand precisely what is in the various series!)

Type keywords or a composer into the search box and see what you find - details of the publication, and where copies can be found.

You know what Urtext is - but have you tried locating a Manuscript or early Imprint?

RISM is the website you're looking for!  (It stands for Repertoire Internationale des Sources Musicales)

Click here for the search page.

Musicians! RILM or JSTOR: Deciding Where to Start

Do you look at our Electronic Resources page and wonder where to start?  Do the acronyms and abbreviations bamboozle you?

Two of our most popular and useful resources for musicians are RILM and JSTOR.  There are two main differences, and once you understand those, you're better able to decide where to start!  

It's the difference between subject specific and multi-disciplinary; and the difference between full-text and abstract or indexing services.  Whatever you're consulting, you need to know what's in there.  (It's like knowing whether a shop will have the kind of merchandise you're looking for!)

RILM consists of abstracts (summaries) of scholarly writing on all kinds of musical subjects.  The abstract helps you decide if the article or book will be of use to you, and there are all the details of where to find it.  The Whittaker Library staff are here to help staff and students access the information they need for a teaching or essay assignment.  It's a subject-specific abstracting service. It provides directions towards the info you need, but it doesn't actually give you the full-text information.

JSTOR is a huge multi-disciplinary database of full-text articles.  Unlike RILM, it gives you full-text articles.  However, whilst universities subscribe to the whole database, we only subscribe to the music package.  On the other hand, if you find details of an article in another discipline, and it really looks relevant, then come and ask us.  We can try to obtain it from another library for you.

• RCS Whittaker Library Electronic Resources web-page

This blogpost is about a couple of our resources that musicians might find useful.  We could tell you about many more!  In due course we'll also share information about drama and dance resources, too.

We are the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, here to help our staff and students access the information they need to be effective creative artists.

Music Manuscripts - a RISM Trial for the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

Valuable Music Manuscripts Accessible Online

Musicologists at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland will be interested to learn that a trial is available until 21st February, to RISM - Series A/II: Music Manuscripts after 1600. 

This resource can also be cross-searched with the other music resources via this link.  Further information is available here.

NB Staff and students of the Conservatoire are reminded that online resource trials are set up for on-site use, within the campus buildings.

Music manuscripts from Ireland (pre-20th century) - RISM listing

Kilcormack Missal,Trinity College Dublin

'Whittaker' gladly shares with you this excellent news of improved bibliographic access to Irish music manuscripts.  Here's the communication from Dr Catherine Ferris:-

"First Phase of the RISM Ireland Database Launched

http://www.rism-ie.org

RISM Ireland is delighted to announce the launch of a new Irish-focused free-to-access database of pre-twentieth century musical materials held in repositories throughout the island of Ireland. This new resource highlights the contents of Ireland’s collections in a national context. In addition, records from the RISM Ireland catalogue are shared with the RISM Zentralredaktion in Frankfurt, which publishes the collective work of RISM groups in thirty-five countries throughout the world, thereby placing the Irish sources in a worldwide context.

The work of RISM Ireland is project-based, focusing on diverse areas of Irish musical life and individual institutional holdings. This launch highlights the first major research project to be published in the database: The Mercer’s Hospital Music Collection. This project, undertaken in collaboration with RISM Ireland and RISM UK, resulted from a DIT Conservatory of Music & Drama research scholarship. The scholarship to carry out doctoral research on the collection was awarded to Tríona O’Hanlon and supervised by Dr Kerry Houston.

For further information, see the IAML (UK & Irl) February 2013 Newsletter or contact Dr Catherine Ferris."