Welcome to RISM-US!

Welcome to the RISM-US World Wide Web Information Server. the Server is maintained by the U.S. Office of the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales -- the International Inventory of Musical Sources, a worldwide effort to identify and describe sources of music and writings about music from the earliest times through ca. 1825.

The U.S. RISM Office collects information from libraries in the United States about music manuscripts, printed music, and libretti of the period ca. 1580-1825. The Office makes available cataloguing for manuscripts and libretti through Internet-accessible databases in the United States free of charge. It also maintains several additional information files that may be of interest to librarians and scholars.

The RISM-US WWW Home Page describes the various Online Resources it makes available and can help you connect to them. These include the

There is also additional general information, including:

RISM-US Online Resources

Information about Music Manuscripts

 Data representing music manuscripts is available through the Harvard University Library Online Information System (HOLLIS) as the RISM-US Music Manuscripts Database. If you using this resource for the first time, you can press here to retrieve online help on connecting to and searching the RISM-US Music Manuscripts Database. If you are experienced with the database, you connect now via telnet to HOLLIS, or via Gopher to "HOLLIS Plus", the Gopher incarnation of the Harvard Online Catalogue.

General information on the project is available, as follows:

Information about Libretti

 Cataloguing for libretti is available free of charge in VIRGO, the University of Virginia's public online library catalogue. New users may want help on how to use VIRGO and the RISM Libretto Project data. When you are ready, you can connect to VIRGO via telnet directly from this page.

The following documents may also be of interest:

The RISM Libretto Project data is also available on The Music Catalog on CD-ROM, a CD-ROM product of the Library of Congress Cataloging Distribution Service, and in the RLIN bibliographic databases maintained by the Research Libraries Group.

The RISM Names Authority File (RAF)

 RISM maintains a database of composer names that have been included in the RISM Series A/II manuscript inventory. The U.S. RISM Office has expanded this resource to include names of librettists, copyists, former owners of manuscripts, etc. At present there are more than 30,000 names indexed in the database.

Help on using the RAF is available, or you can connect to the Database now.

The RISM-L News Server

 RISM-L is a listserv designed to distribute information about the activities and resources of the U.S. RISM Office and about publications and activities of the RISM organization in general.

To keep up to date on RISM, subscribe to RISM-L: send a one-line e-mail message to: 

		listproc@husc.harvard.edu
The message should read: 
		SUBSCRIBE RISM-L <Your Name>
You will receive a confirmation message and a brief information file on using the listserv.

Information is also available on the following topics:

Comments or Problems

 Your comments on the RISM-US Home Page are welcome! To offer feedback or suggestions or if you need help using the RISM-US Music Manuscripts Database or subscribing to RISM-L, please send e-mail to rismhelp@rism.harvard.edu, or, if you are using an up-to-date Web-browser such as Netscape 1.0, press here now.