Welcome to the International Inventory of Musical Sources (RISM)

Here you find RISM’s vast collection of musical sources and can freely search among 700,000 entries that contain mostly historical music manuscripts (the majority originated before 1800).The original sources are available from the libraries, music archives, and private collections as indicated in the RISM database. These institutions can often be approached for reproductions.

This online database is the result of a cooperation between the Bavarian State Library, the State Library of Berlin,
and RISM.

The cataloguing of the musical sources is being done and is financed by several national and international institutions (see the RISM-website for more information).

The RISM Zentralredaktion is a project of the Academy of Science and Literature, Mainz.