The inward view: data structure in RISM The data used in the initiatives described above are managed in the cataloguing programme Muscat, which is provided to members of RISM working groups. Muscat is an open source, web-based and platform-independent system. It is the result of a collaboration between the RISM Central Office and RISM Switzerland (Muscat project). It was originally developed by RISM Switzerland and RISM United Kingdom and had been in use by them for more than ten years before an implementation was made available to all RISM project participants in 2016 (Güggi and Pugin 2017). Muscat facilitates the management of sources and the organisation of essential elements, which is crucial when numerous contributors are involved with a project. Muscat has a multilingual interface (English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, with Polish in preparation), a commenting system, folders and a versioning system for records. The versioning system keeps track of changes, shows the modifications and allows a record to be restored to a previous stage. Authority files and standardised vocabulary are built in so they can be accessed, referenced and added to while cataloguing. Different cataloguing templates are offered depending on whether the source concerns handwritten or printed music, a libretto or a treatise. More than 50 fields are available for cataloguers, including many that are unique to cataloguing music (composer, catalogue of works number, genres, key, opus number, scoring, plate number for printed music, music incipit). Recently the capability to catalogue printed music was improved with the addition of the fields book format, colophon and fingerprint identifier along with the extended ability of contributors to input more detailed descriptions (see Figure 7). A field for watermarks supports specialists in the field of paper studies. Muscat aims to be a cataloguing programme that meets the needs of music specialists. In providing specialised fields, detailed information can be entered and retrieved. Data are structured around the MARC21 format, which eases data exchanges between RISM and libraries.
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