News

RILM Archive of Popular Music Magazines (RAPMM) Product Coordinator Lindsey Eckenroth will be in attendance at the conference of the U.S. branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music in Washington, D.C., 26 February–1 March 2026. The event takes the theme of Popular Music and the State.

On Saturday, 28 February, 8:30–9:00am local time, Lindsey will present a paper titled “The Carter Family’s ‘Single girl, married girl’: Tracing interpretive tensions through the lens of social reproduction theory” as part of the Conservatism panel. Her research presents this 1928 hillbilly hit through the lens of the Carters’ family-oriented, conservative, self-described “morally good” public image; the values and gender norms associated with country music; and discourses surrounding motherhood, reproductive choice, and feminism in the U.S. during the early 20th century. 

Lindsey will also be around for the duration of the conference, so please feel free to catch her to ask questions, provide feedback, pick up some free materials about RAPMM, or just say hello.

And for more details on this event, please visit the conference website on which you’ll find the conference program.

RILM will participate in the 95th annual meeting of the Music Library Association (MLA), held in Salt Lake City, 25-28 February 2026.

Conference attendees are cordially invited to a luncheon celebrating the start of RILM’s 60th anniversary during the MLA Annual Meeting. The luncheon will take place on Friday, 27 February 2026, 12:00–1:00 pm MST at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center.  

Executive Director Tina Frühauf will open with a State of RILM and reflections on the organization’s direction moving forward, followed by Elizabeth Martin-Ruiz, who will share updates on recent and forthcoming product developments. Ian McGorray will close with a look at RILM’s 60-year history.

Please RSVP by Friday, 20 February 2026 to reserve your lunch and a seat by emailing conferences@rilm.org with your name, institution, and “MLA 2026” in the subject line. 

In addition to the luncheon, Ian, Liz, and Tina will be available throughout the conference to discuss RILM products and gather feedback. We invite you to visit the RILM booth, schedule an appointment via subscriptions@rilm.org, or—if attending virtually—arrange a one-on-one Zoom consultation after the MLA has concluded. 

And to learn more about the event, head to the conference website, or peruse the program. 

We look forward to seeing you soon!

Three titles have just been added to RILM Music Encyclopedias, further enriching its collection of reference works from around the globe:

• Walter Brunetto, Piccolo vocabolario etnomusicologico: Forme, stili, repertori e contesti della musica di tradizione orale italiana (Rome: Squilibri, 2012) 253 p. — In Italian.
• Frank Daykin, Encyclopedia of French art song: Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2013) vi, 739 p. — In English.
• Igor de Gandarias, Diccionario de la música en Guatemala (rev. ed.; Ciudad de Guatemala: Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, 2024) xv, 193 p. — In Spanish.

These newly available texts exemplify RILM Music Encyclopedias’ commitment to comprehensive, international, and subject-specific coverage. 

The Piccolo vocabolario etnomusicologico offers a coherent, structured, and systematic lexicon devoted to the study of Italian traditional music. Connecting performance practice with rigorous scholarly research, the Encyclopedia of French art song offers an in-depth exploration of individual mélodies by Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, and Poulenc. The Diccionario de la música en Guatemala is the first reference work devoted exclusively to Guatemala’s musical traditions, encompassing Indigenous, colonial, and contemporary influences.

Together, these additions underscore the role of RILM Music Encyclopedias in preserving, contextualizing, and advancing global perspectives on musical traditions and historiography.

RILM Music Encyclopedias is available via EBSCOhost and on RILM’s platform, Egret, at rme.rilm.org.

RILM will be in attendance at the Forging an American Musical Identity (FAMI) conference in New York, NY, 28–30 January 2026.

Hosted by The Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation’s project Music in Gotham: The New York Scene 1862–1875, the conference and related events are held across iconic NYC performance and research venues, such as The Graduate Center (CUNY), the NYPL for the Performing Arts, and Carnegie Hall. The three-day event explores a broad spectrum of repertories through scholarly discussion and live performances, featuring music not heard for over a century. Together, these activities invite reflection on how music shaped 19th-century American culture and how it continues to inform our understanding of American identity today. 

RILM staff can be found at the RILM exhibition table in front of The Graduate Center’s Elebash Recital Hall and Segal Hall on 29 and 30 January, respectively.

Stop by to learn more about all of RILM’s resources. And for more details on this event, please visit the conference website on which you’ll find the conference program.

New York, NY / London, UK – RILM (Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale), a global organization dedicated to documenting and making accessible the world’s musical knowledge across all traditions, is proud to announce that it has acquired the Hofmeister XIX database from Royal Holloway, University of London, and King’s College London. This valuable resource is now hosted at hofmeister.rilm.org, continuing its mission under RILM’s stewardship to support musicological inquiry.

The Hofmeister XIX database provides comprehensive, searchable access to over 330,000 bibliographic records from the Hofmeister Monatsberichte, published between 1829 and 1900. These records represent a vital primary source for the study of music publishing, repertoire, and taste in the 19th century, and include bibliographic records for music scores, music-related books, periodicals, portraits, and other ephemera.

The database was created and developed at Royal Holloway and King’s College London (Department of Digital Humanities) by a team headed by Nicholas Cook (Director) and Liz Robinson (Project Manager), with support from the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council. Since 2007 the project has served music librarians, scholars, and others worldwide through an open-access model. RILM now assumes ownership with a firm commitment to preserving open access to the database, its quality, and its scholarly integrity. RILM will continue to credit the founding institutions prominently on the site and maintain the platform according to the high standards long associated with Hofmeister XIX.

“RILM is honored to take over this invaluable resource,” said Dr. Tina Frühauf, Executive Director of RILM. “As a UNESCO-accredited NGO under the 2003 and 2005 Conventions, we are committed to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage and promoting cultural diversity. Acquiring Hofmeister XIX aligns with this mission by preserving and disseminating a vital record of 19th-century musical life and publishing. We look forward to ensuring its continued accessibility for scholars and the public worldwide.”

Dr. Nicholas Cook, a former professor at Royal Holloway, commented: “At a time when digital resources in academia often struggle to keep up with the pace of technical innovation, RILM’s acquisition of Hofmeister XIX is the best possible guarantee of its long-term survival.”

Royal Holloway’s Director of Research and Innovation, Sue Starbuck, noted: “We are thrilled that Hofmeister XIX will thrive under RILM’s custodianship. Their infrastructure, global reach, and deep commitment to musicology ensure a strong future for this resource.”

Dr. Arianna Ciula, Director of the King’s Digital Lab, commented: “With the support of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities leadership at King’s College London, King’s Digital Lab has made every effort to sustain digital resources of value to the research community. The migration of this important resource to its new home is a great example of what trustworthy collaboration and a holistic archiving and sustainability programme can achieve.”

As of today, the original site can be accessed through the new URL https://hofmeister.rilm.org, marking a seamless transition for the academic community and general public.

For more information, please contact:

• RILM
  Dr. Tina Frühauf
  Executive Director
  info@rilm.org
  
• Royal Holloway, University of London
  Sue Starbuck
  Director of Research and Innovation
  Sue.Starbuck@rhul.ac.uk
  
• King’s College London
  Dr. Arianna Ciula
  Director, King’s Digital Lab
  kdl-info@kcl.ac.uk
  

RILM will participate in the joint meeting of the American Musicological Society and Society for Music Theory in Minneapolis, 6–9 November 2025. 

On Thursday, 6 November, at 5:00pm CDT, Editor Stella Li will present her research in a paper titled “Jazz queens in women’s magazines: Negotiating femininity in occupied Japan” as part of The “New Woman” and Popular Song in World War II China and Japan panel. Also on Thursday, 4:00–5:30pm, Editor Ralph Whyte will chair the panel Cultural Imaginings in Global Organology. 

On Friday, 7 November, 10:45am–12:15pm, Executive Director Tina Frühauf will chair the panel In the Shadow of the Holocaust. That evening, 6:00–8:00pm, RILM and RIPM will host a joint reception for all conference attendees.

On Saturday, 8 November, 9:00–10:30am, Stella will chair the panel Cultural Representation and Artistic Agency in Asian Popular Music. That afternoon, 2:15–3:45pm, Ralph will lead a workshop on research techniques and bibliography. The workshop will consider how music scholars–especially graduate students and other junior scholars–navigate databases, reference works, and other research tools. Finally, later that day, 4:00–5:00pm, Stella will lead a workshop on abstract writing titled Mastering the Art of the Abstract. 

Throughout the conference, RILM staff can also be found at the RILM booth in the exhibition hall. Stop by to learn more about all of RILM’s resources. 

And for more details on this event, please visit the conference website on which you’ll find the conference schedule.

RILM will participate in the 70th annual meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology in Atlanta, Georgia, 23–26 October 2025.

On Thursday, 23 October, at 8:00am local time, Editor Beatriz Goubert will present her paper “Scenes behind the zines: Global music connections in the pre-Internet era”, which features an analysis of some of the 1980s popular music fanzines in the RILM Archive of Popular Music Magazines (RAPMM) digital archive.

On Thursday, 23 October, at 4:00pm local time, Editor Stella Li will present her research in a paper titled “Jazz queens in women’s magazines: Negotiating femininity in occupied Japan” as part of The “New Woman” and Popular Song in World War II China and Japan panel.

On Friday, 24 October, at 4:00pm EDT, Editor Russell Skelchy will conduct a workshop titled Research Tools for Ethnomusicology: Navigating Bibliography, Historiography, and Ethnography. The workshop will be dedicated to developing research techniques with a focus on bibliography, historiography, online databases, and other research tools relevant to ethnographers and practitioners in the field of ethnomusicology, especially graduate students and junior scholars.

RILM staff will also be present at the RILM booth in the exhibition hall throughout the conference. Stop by to learn more about all of RILM’s resources. We look forward to seeing you in Atlanta!

View the full conference schedule here.

Executive Editor Zdravko Blažeković will be present at the EBSCO Open Day Torino on 22 October 2025. Held at the Palazzo Reale, this year’s meeting is dedicated to the theme The 2030 Agenda for a Sustainable Future. It provides a forum through which to reflect on the challenges and opportunities related to sustainability and the strategic role that academic libraries, businesses, government agencies, research institutions, and international publishers are called upon to play. Zdravko will be joined by DEUMM Online General Editor Daniela Castaldo.

Executive Director Tina Frühauf will be present at various events in Barcelona, Spain, 26 September–1 October 2025. She will first join the Àgora Cívica, a civil society forum to MONDIACULT that convenes debates and exchanges on cultural rights, cultural and language diversity, technologies and artificial intelligence in culture, culture and peace, cities and the role of culture in sustainable development, and cultural ecosystems and governance models. She will attend the Fair Culture pre-event (during which the German Commission will present the Fair Charter). She will then take part in MONDIACULT 2025, the world’s leading conference on cultural policies and sustainable development, addressing themes such as cultural rights, digital technologies in the cultural sector, culture and education, the economy of culture, climate action, and heritage in times of crisis, with special focus on Culture for Peace and Artificial Intelligence & Culture. Across all events, Dr. Frühauf will represent RILM in discussions, presentations, and forums that resonate with the organization’s mission—particularly in digitization, access to cultural heritage, and the intersections of scholarship, archival practice, and digital technologies—while engaging with international peers and decision-makers on the future of culture, sustainability, and inclusion.

RILM will participate at the eighth biennial conference of the International Musicological Society Regional Association for East Asia (IMSEA) in Nanning, China, 19–21 September 2025.

The aim of IMSEA is to provide a forum for exchanges among music researchers in the region, regardless of their areas of specializations and subjects of studies.

On Saturday, 20 September, 2:00–2:30 pm local time, Executive Editor Zdravko Blažeković will present his paper “Michael Alphonsius Shen Fu-Tsung 沈福宗 and his sheng” on the panel Transmission and Adaptation of Instruments.  

Please feel free to find Zdravko and ask questions, provide feedback, or say hello. For more details on this event, please visit the conference website on which you’ll find the conference schedule.