Talk at the colloquium "Music as Cultural Heritage" in Abu Dhabi, March 15, 2017

1. Digital Services for Musicologists
Presentation at the Colloquium
„Music as Cultural Heritage“
New York University Abu Dhabi
March 15, 2017
Jürgen Diet, Bavarian State Library, Music Department

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Agenda
1. A few facts about the music department of the Bavarian State Library
2. Digital Services offered by the BSB music department
1. Digitization of BSB‘s music holdings
2. Virtual Library of Musicology (ViFaMusik)
3. The RISM-OPAC
3. Current developments and future plans

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1. A few facts about the music department of the
Bavarian State Library
• Bavarian State Library (BSB) has been
founded in 1558 by Duke Albrecht V
• BSB‘s music holdings started with music
from the Bavarian court (1.400 music
prints from 16th century)
• current holdings in the BSB music department:
 455,000 sheet music
 72,000 music manuscripts
 330 bequests
 93,000 sound carriers
 165,000 music books and music journals

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• some highlights from our holdings:
Josquin des Prez, begin of „Missa de beata virgine“ (Mus.ms. C, folio 41 v. – 42 r.)

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Three part books (4 Mus.pr. 15)

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Manuscript of Mahler‘s symphony no 8 (Mus.ms. 13719)

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• numerous digitization activities for musical holdings (see ch. 2.1),
cooperation with Google since 2007
• responsible for the special subject collection „Musicology“ from 1949
until 2013, sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG)
• Virtual Library of Musicology since 2005
(see ch. 2.2)

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• responsible for „Specialised Information Service Musicology“ since 2014;
since the second project phase in 2017 together with the project partner
Sacon State and University Library Dresden (see ch. 3)
• acquisition budget of BSB music department in 2017:
350.000€ (ca. 50% own funds and
50% third-party funds from DFG)
• more information about the BSB music department and its collections:
https://www.bsb-muenchen.de/en/about-us/head-office-departments/music
https://www.bsb-muenchen.de/en/collections/music

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All digitizations in the Bavarian State Library (as of March 2017):
• 1,199,000 digitized objects (10% of BSB‘s complete holding)
• 1,617,000,000 files
• 664 TB
http://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/index.html?c=statistiken&l=en
2. Digital Services offered by the BSB music department
2.1 Digitization of BSB‘s music holdings

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Different reasons for digitization:
• digitization projects
• digitization on demand
• digitizations because of
preservation issues
• cooperation with Google

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How many music objects have been digitized?
• 17,600 music prints
• ca. 3,000 music manuscripts
• 4,500 music monographs
• 7,200 libretti
• music journals

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Selected digitized sheet music:
• Choir books and manuscripts written in choir-book notation
• Printed sources of polyphonic music (1501-1700)
• Several complete works editions of famous composers:
 Ludwig van Beethoven (Breitkopf &Härtel, 1862 - 1865)
 Georg Friedrich Händel (ed. 1858 – 1902 by Friedrich Chrysander)
 Franz Liszt (ed. 1907 – 1936 by Carl Alexander)
 Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (ed. 1874 – 1877 by Julius Rietz)
 Franz Schubert (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1884 - 1897)
 Robert Schumann (ed. 1879 – 1893 by Clara Schumann)

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Where can the digitized music objects be found?
• MDZ Digital Collections: www.digitale-
sammlungen.de/index.html?c=sammlungen&kategorie_sammlung=
8&l=en
• BSB OPAC: opac.bsb-muenchen.de
• ViFaMusik: www.vifamusik.de
• RISM-OPAC: opac.rism.info
• Europeana: www.europeana.eu
• Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek: www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de

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• Google Books: books.google.com
• ISMLP:
imslp.org/wiki/Category:Scores_from_Bayerische_Staatsbibliothek
• Music Treasures Consortium:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/treasures/treasures-home.html
Reference
• Jürgen Diet: Digitization and Presentation of Music Documents in the
Bavarian State Library, in: Fontes Artis Musicae 61 (2014), No. 3, p.
275-283

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2.2. Virtual Library of Musicology (ViFaMusik)
ViFaMusik …
• … is a central portal for musicology
• … gives access to an extensive digital library containing the
latest scholarly research and online resources
• … has been sponsored by the German Research Foundation
from 2005 until 2014

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The ViFaMusik-modules:
• ViFaMusik-search in currently 16 data sources
• journal overview
• digital collections
• special presentation of „Handwörterbuchs der musikalischen
Terminologie“ (concise dictionary of musical terminology)
• digitization and cataloguing of „Phonographischen Zeitschrift“
and „Zeitschrift für Instrumentenbau“
• design and implemention of the database for RIdIM Germany

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The ViFaMusik-modules (cont.):
• cataloguing and web archiving of internet resources
• database of German musicological institutes and database of
experts
• dissertation subject reporting site
• document server for publications in musicology

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www.vifamusik.de

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2.3. The RISM-OPAC
Bavarian State Library is implementing and hosting the RISM-OPAC in
cooperation with RISM

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• The ViFaMusik modules are being enhanced with recently acquired
funds (via the new funding opportunity „specialised information
service musicology“ by the German Research Foundation)
• Current developments and future plans (since 2017 in cooperation
with the Saxon State and University Library Dresden):
 new data sources for the ViFaMusik-search („European Music
Catalogue“)
 optical music recognition
 licencing of electronic publications for German musicologists
3. Current developments and future plans

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 new open acces content for document server
 new functions for RIdIM website
 new functions for RISM and RISM-OPAC
 database for music performance ephemera
 long-term archiving of musicological websites
 close coordination with the musicological community via a
German and an international advisory board

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Current information about ViFaMusik:
http://vifamusik.wordpress.com
http://twitter.com/vifamusik
Contact:
Jürgen Diet
Deputy Head of Music Department
Bavarian State Library
diet@bsb-muenchen.de
Tel. ++49-89-28638-2786
These slides can be found at http://de.slideshare.net/jdiet
Thank you for your attention!