Répertoire International des Sources Musicales

The Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM, English International Inventory of Musical Sources, German Internationales Quellenlexikon der Musik) is an international non-profit organization, founded in Paris in 1952, with the aim of comprehensively documenting extant historical sources of music all over the world. It is the largest organization of its kind and the only entity operating globally to document written musical sources. RISM is one of the four bibliographic projects sponsored by the International Musicological Society and the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres, the others being Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM, founded in 1966), Répertoire International d'Iconographie Musicale (RIdIM, founded in 1971), and Répertoire international de la presse musicale (RIPM, founded in 1980).
Shortly after its founding, A.H. King called RISM, "one of the boldest pieces of long-term planning ever undertaken f...