The MUSICA database of the SBN Sistema Indice

Abstract

MUSICA is one of the databases of the Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale (SBN) and contains approximately 245,000 files of information on music documents dating from the XV to the XIX century (more than 83,000 manuscripts and almost 160,000 printed editions).
This material is distributed and housed in over 700 public and private libraries and archives in Italy. The kernel of the database consists of information acquired from the catalogues compiled by the Ufficio Ricerca Fondi Musicali (URFM) of Milan and by the Istituto di Bibliografia Musicale (IBIMUS) of Rome and will be expanded to include a further 200,000 items of information from the A.CO.M. project and data provided by the Santa Cecilia Library of Rome.
Access to the database is possible via the ITAPAC public network, the GARR network of Universities and Research Institutes, or a dedicated telephone line. As an experiment, the databases of the SBN Cataloguing System have been made accessible via Internet at the address: opac.sbn.it.
The user can also call up adn consult the System from terminals available at over 400 libraries of the SBN network located in the various regions of Italy. Before the end of 1996, a more user-friendly mode of access to the MUSICA database will be implemented under an ICCU project, designed for specialist research and having greater integration with the other SBN databases.
Input to MUSICA is controlled by a procedure for personal computer which ICCU supplies to libraries upon request. The procedure manages an Authority File giving access to 40,000 names, the schedules prescribed for SBN cataloguing and the lists for musical cataloguing (musical instruments, keys, RIMS library acronyms). A list is given of the libraries present in the MUSICA database, together with their RISM acronyms and with an indication of the manuscripts and printed editions connected with them.