Welcome!
The Bibliographie des Musikschrifttums online (Bibliography of Music Literature on-line)
is an international and interactive bibliography of literature on music. This bibliographic
reference tool is edited by the » Staatliches
Institut für Musikforschung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, and may
be used free of charge. It is the continuation of the printed volumes which stop
with the report year 1988. Currently, BMS online has more than 300,000 records of literature on music.
BMS is supplemented by the » OLC-SSG Musicology,
which incorporates the contents of some 150 music journals from 1993 onward.
On » ViFaMusik, the German
subject gateway for music research, you can find a wealth of additional
resources.
Interactivity
The BMS will be enriched by the participation of its users.
If you wish to have certain bibliographic records added, send them to us with or without a summary.
You may use our » e-mail form.
Coverage
Currently, BMS provides bibliographic data from 1950 to the present. It includes monographs, articles and reviews
from journals, Festschriften, congress proceedings, yearbooks, anthologies and essays from critical reports.
Main sources for the BMS editorial staff are national bibliographies, journals, monographs and subject bibliographies.
Furthermore, contributions from journals with an interdiscplinary view on music are considered for inclusion.
Per annum we check some 600 sources and add approximately 10,000 titles. Bibliographic records are often amended by a summary.
We are planning converting and revising our analog data from the periods 1936 to 1941 and 1976 to 1985, and we will do our best
to fill the gap for the years 1942 to 1949 as soon as we can.
History
BMS was established in 1936 by the "Staatliches Institut für deutsche Musikforschung" in Berlin with the aim to list literature on
music from all over the world. It resumed the bibliographic surveys printed in the "Jahrbücher der Musikbibliothek Peters".
The first BMS editor was Kurt Taut, who was succeeded by Georg Karstädt. Originally printed by Friedrich Hofmeister in Leipzig
(Leipzig: Hofmeister, 1936-1941 [volumes 1.1936 to 4.1939]), after a span of four years BMS was stopped due to to wartime limitations.
The commencement of this bibliographic enterprise after World War II is owed to the musicologist and librarian Wolfgang Schmieder.
On behalf of the reconstituted "Institut für Musikforschung" the first volume for 1950/51 appeared in 1954. Since that time the Bibliographie
des Musikschrifttums has been a regular publication of the Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung. The last volume in print format was
published in 2001 and covered the year 1988 (Frankfurt am Main: Hofmeister, 1954-1968 [volumes 1.1950/51 to 6.1960], Mainz: Schott, 1969-2001
[volumes 1961 to 1988]). Since 1968, the institute´s bibliographic staff has been working as the German committee for "RILM Abstracts of Music Literature."
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