Sixty-six essays in Music’s Intellectual History offer insights into the history of music scholarship from the Renaissance to the twentieth century, demonstrating the partnership of RILM and historiographic investigation. The contributions address an array of subjects and perspectives that indicate the directions music scholarship has taken in the past, reveal the precedents of current scholarly habits, and suggest future paths. An outline of the volume’s table of contents can be found on this site.

The Guatemalan national committee began operations in early 2009 under the initiative of Matthias Stockli, a researcher at the Centro de Estudios Folkloricos of the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala. He received a doctorate in ethnomusicology from the University of Zurich and has lived in Guatemala since 1997, where he has taught at some of the country’s leading universities. In 2006, he co-edited the first ever written compilation of articles dedicated entirely to ethnomusicological research in Guatemala, and since 2008 he is co-editor of the journal Senderos: Revista de etnomusicologia, dedicated mainly to the music cultures of Guatemala and Central America.

Only a few months after the establishment of the Guatemalan committee, the pianist and musicologist Eduardo Plaza embarked on a similar venture in Venezuela, thus leading the way to a more comprehensive coverage of that country’s rich musicological and ethnomusicological tradition. Eduardo Plaza studied piano and musicology in Strassbourg, France, and returned to Venezuela in 1998. Currently, he is a researcher at the Universidad Central de Venezuela and professor at the Universidad Simon Bolivar, where he also pursues a doctorate in literature. He is a member of the editorial board of the online periodical Musicaenclaves, which, together with the Revista musical de Venezuela, will form the initial core of publications to be entered in RILM on a regular basis.

RILM is exhibiting at the 78th annual meeting of the Music Library Association in Chicago, Illinois. In addition to browsing RILM publications, conference participants can take advantage of tutorials on how to search RILM effectively at the RILM booth. During the conference RILM’s Editor-in-Chief Barbara Mackenzie will report on RILM in a panel dedicated to R-projects (RILM-RIPM-RISM-RIdIM) and other international endeavors. RILM will also partake in a discussion aimed at expanding JSTOR’s coverage of music journals.

Thanks to a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the fifth publication in RILM’s Retrospective Series, Liber amicorum: Music Festschriften, 1840-1966, Music Scholars and Others, is now in the final stages; the finished book is projected for April 2009. Providing full bibliographic information, abstracts, and indexing for 6000 articles in 800 books, Liber amicorum is the largest compilation of its kind. The collection was abstracted almost entirely by RILM editors. The books were gathered through a variety of sources, including the Graduate Center’s interlibrary loan system and the New York Public Library’s extensive noncirculating collection. RILM is particularly grateful for the kind cooperation and support of the Brooklyn College Library for granting RILM access to the Gerboth Collection. The volume’s value for researchers is increased through the inclusion of many music-related articles in Festschriften dedicated to individuals who distinguished themselves in fields other than music. A volume documenting Festschriften dedicated to composers and musicians is in preparation.