Dear musicians



Many may remember the RISM catalogue of manuscript music held in British libraries that was available as an online resource until a few years ago. I am delighted to let you know that a successor to this database -- now covering printed music too -- is available via a link on the RISM UK website, http://www.rism.org.uk, the RISM landing page on the Royal Holloway, University of London website,

https://www.rhul.ac.uk/research-and-teaching/departments-and-schools/music/research/research-projects-and-centres/rism-uk-database/ and directly at http://uk.rism-ch.org/catalog.



This database is a subset of the international RISM Online Catalogue of Musical Sources at http://www.rism.info/home.html. It contains all data from that resource on printed and manuscript music held in British libraries and archives, and pulls data directly from the international database to ensure it remains up-to-date. We hope it will be of value and interest to researchers wanting to locate sources of printed and manuscript music held in repositories in Britain.



This database illustrates the rich resource of historic music materials that have been preserved in Britain. The information held can be searched in traditional ways, such as by composer and title, and also by the incipits of the musical notation. A new feature makes it possible to identify and locate unica -- printed editions that survive in single copies only. It is also possible to define the date ranges of searches more precisely than was possible before. Data from search results can be freely downloaded in simple CSV format, allowing researchers to reuse the information for their own purposes. The database also provides access to digitised images, where they are available, from participating libraries via IIIF.



This new discovery interface has been funded by the Strategic Knowledge Exchange Initiative at Royal Holloway, University of London. This built on the AHRC-funded cataloguing project led by Professor David Charlton at Royal Holloway between 2001 and 2007. The platform is kindly hosted by RISM Switzerland for the RISM (UK) Trust. There is further information about the work of RISM (UK) and other major UK music resources at http://www.rism.org.uk.



The new platform includes content from all of the major UK repositories which were covered by the previous cataloguing projects. There is still work to be done, however – both to complete coverage from these locations, and to include others not yet included at all. A recent scoping study (also funded by RHUL’s Strategic Knowledge Exchange Initiative), for example, has revealed the potential for further cataloguing projects in county record offices and other archives across the UK.



We hope that the availability of this information in the database and enhanced methods for searching and exporting the data will support and stimulate further research into these musical sources. We would also be very pleased to hear from holders of material within RISM’s scope who would be interested in adding its details to the database: please contact Ms Caroline Shaw, Secretary of the RISM (UK) Trust: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>.



Kind regards



Richard Chesser

Chair, RISM (UK) Trust







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