Swiss RISM branch: Database

Répertoire International des Sources Musicales
Schweiz - Suisse - Svizzera - Switzerland

Presentation

Projects

Database

Swiss RISM Office database

D ¦ F ¦ I

The RISM database contains 34'941 musical manuscripts and 21'768 printed scores from 55 Swiss musical institutions, both private and public, including archives, libraries, convents and private collections. The 50'235 catalogued titles each contain up to 100 fields per bibliographic record and follow the RISM A/II directives on data entry, with the following main search fields:- Name of composer, name of arranger etc., with dates of birth and death;

- Catalogue title (title of the work in its standard form);
- Musical incipit;
- Description of materials used;
- Institution where the source is held and its library reference.

The printed musical scores have been catalogued for the first time in www.rism-database.ch, as opposed to the RISM A/II database.
The RISM database was financed by the Swiss Academy of Human and Socail Sciences.

Search interface
The web interface in 4 languages allows for a combined search to be made in different fields of the database. The results are displayed in two stages: first, the overall results of the search with 10, 20, 50 or 100 search results per page on several pages if required. Then each individual entry, with all the details of the record in question plus, if it is a collection, the details of its contents. The search possibilities also include:·

- the ability to search by liturgical feast;
- limiting the search to a single repertory or specific collection;
- consulting the former database.

In order to publish the RISM database on the internet, the data had to be exported from a proprietorial system (the DOS Pikado software used by the RISM since the nineties) to a new, SGBD, system. This was done via a three-stage process:

- Transformation of the database design;
- Transfer and formatting of the data;
- Integration of search facilities and web interface.

Technical concept and computer programming
Laurent Pugin (homepage)
CIRMMT, Schulich School of Music
McGill University
555 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 1E3
e-mail: laurent@music.mcgill.ca

Dokumentation
- Composers
- Keywords
- Latin texts
- Liturgical feasts
- Libraries
- Abbreviations (pdf)

Database
www.rism-database.ch