Répertoire International des Sources Musicales A/I: Einzeldrucke vor 1800 (CD-ROM) (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Répertoire International des Sources Musicales A/I: Einzeldrucke vor 1800 (CD-ROM) Stephen Henry Répertoire International des Sources Musicales A/I: Einzeldrucke vor 1800 (CD-ROM). Kassel: Bärenreiter-Verlag, 2011. [Requires an Intel Pentium 4.2 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1800+ processor or faster; 512 MB RAM or higher; CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive; Windows 2000 (with Service Pack 4) or higher; Firefox 3.0 or Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher. Pricing: €450.] Context Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM)—as most readers of Notes are aware, and as its title implies—is an ongoing international project attempting to document the existence of musical source materials in libraries around the world. RISM Series A/II inventories music manuscripts from 1600 to around 1800, while Series A/I, the newly published CD-ROM version that is reviewed here, does the same for printed music by individual composers published before around 1800. Series A/I was originally issued between 1971 and 1981 as a set of nine print volumes, with entries arranged alphabetically by composer. An additional four supplementary volumes (also arranged by composer) were published between 1986 and 1999. Finally, a cumulative index was published in 2003, offering access points to publishers, printers, engravers, and places of publication. The triumphs and shortcomings of RISM A/I are well-documented and well-known.1 In brief, the triumphs include the unprecedented achievement in bringing some 100,0002 historically important publications scattered among twenty-nine countries under some sense of bibliographic control, and opening up new avenues for research. Limitations include: the under-representation of certain countries and regions (Asia, Latin America, Africa); the undiscovered sources held in smaller libraries and in private collections; uneven data quality and completeness due to varying bibliographic practices among participating nations; the pragmatic limits on the content that could be considered; a lack of biographical information, including dates, for composers; and incomplete bibliographic descriptions regarding typography, pagination, and so on.3 The version of RISM A/I under review here is a database version of the catalog, issued [End Page 392] on CD-ROM, the content of which is "essentially identical with that of the book series."4 Thus, the limitations and successes summarized above for the most part apply to the CD-ROM, and so I will focus on the workings of the interface rather than the content. However, in this context, "content" should be understood to refer to the works included in the catalog. In fact, the CD-ROM adds content in the form of additional access points, biographical information and variant name spellings for composers, and the inclusion of contact information and Web addresses for participating libraries. Format Before moving on to the interface, it is worth saying a few words about the medium. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the publication of an essential reference work on CD-ROM in 2011 has raised a fair number of eyebrows in the music librarianship community, and for good reason. The CD-ROM can only be accessed on-site, as the packaging states explicitly it may not be lent. It is only compatible with Windows machines. CD-ROMs are susceptible to damage and loss. The choice to issue the database on CD-ROM is all the more confounding considering RISM Series A/II has long been available as a networked database first through NISC, then through EBSCO, and most recently through a free online catalog.5 The decision to publish on CD-ROM turns out to be pragmatic. The project to convert the print volumes to a database began in 2004. Manually inputting the data would take a fair amount of labor and financial resources. An agreement with RISM's publisher, Bärenreiter-Verlag, was eventually reached: Bärenreiter would pay the staff to input data and in return the database would be released as a CD-ROM. RISM has plans to include the Series A/I data along with Series A/II in the online catalog, but no definite date has been set for the transfer.6 To be fair, the CD-ROM does have a number of advantages. The purchase price is a one-time fee of i450...