About RISM Online

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 Online, a service from

provides access to these musical sources through extensive search and browse functions. Multiple entry points, with extensive Source, Person, and Institution search interfaces, provide users with the ability to quickly narrow down relevant results using several different approaches, including keyword searches, filters, and relationship information.

The Incipit query interface provides fast and accurate notation searches, with coloured notes that highlight the parts of the incipit that matches a query. Users can also narrow down incipits that match by specifying a clef, key signature, or time signature as a filter, or combine a notation search with a keyword search for composer or piece names.

The National Collection search filter lets users narrow down all search functionality to the bibliography of a single country. This automatically narrows down the search capabilities to just the sources, institutions, and musical incipits available in that country. (Since people can span multiple countries, they are excluded from the search functions when a National Collection is active.)

URLs in RISM Online are guaranteed to be authoritative, stable, and cite-able. You can bookmark, cite, and share URLs among colleagues, with an institutional commitment that they will persist. This includes links to searches and previews, allowing users to share their complex queries with the knowledge that the recipient will see, as close as possible, the same view.

All data in RISM Online is available under a Creative Commons CC-BY 3.0 license. You are free to download and modify the data. If you find the data useful, please include a link back to RISM Online. We are also interested in knowing how RISM data is being used, so please get in touch to tell us about your project.

We make monthly exports of the data available in MARCXML format. These exports cover Source records (including incipits), People and Institution authorities, and Secondary Literature records. You can find a list of the downloads on the

.

For more information on the Query format for RISM Online, consult the

. This provides details on how queries are processed and the different fields and operators available for use.

RISM Online has a full set of Data APIs for both Search queries and Record retrieval that are freely available for use by anyone. Details on how to use these APIs can be found in the

.

If you use OpenRefine, we also make available a Reconciliation Service. Consult the

for more information.

We are constantly improving RISM Online. Feedback about your experience is welcome! Let us know if you could not find what you were looking for, or if there is some information incorrect or missing.

General feedback can be sent to

.

All records also feature a "Report an issue" link at the bottom of the page, which takes you to a form where you can describe the problem. Whenever possible it is helpful to include a link to the record or search that triggered the problem so that we can reproduce it. The URL of the current page is automatically added to the feedback form submission.

: Luzzaschi, Luzzasco. 1601.

Rome: Simone Verovio. p. 5.

: Coques, Gonzales. ca. 1653.

Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.

: Iliff, David. 2015. The interior of Duke Humphrey's Library, the oldest reading room of the Bodleian Library in the University of Oxford. License: CC BY-SA 3.0.

: Sarasin, Lukas. [1760–1802].

Universitätsbibliothek Basel, HKun d III 9. Public Domain.