The Bibliography Commission held two sessions in Edinburgh, one on Monday August 7 and the second on Tuesday August 8, together with the Research Libraries Branch. At the initial session, Joachim Jaenecke (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin) described the newly published „Verzeichnis der Musiknachlässe in Deutschland". In December 1996 a short questionnaire has been sent out to all German research libraries and to all types of music libraries. The directory contains 1.418 entries of 97 institutions in 53 German cities; it is published by the German branch of IAML together with the former Deutsches Bibliotheksinstitut, Berlin and compiled by Joachim Jaenecke. Judy Tsou (University of Washington, Seattle, WA) gave a report entitled „Digital Scriptorium, an illuminated window to the past". The Digital Scriptorium is a joint project of the Bancroft Library (University of California, Berkeley) and the Special Collections Library of Columbia University to digitize the two universities‘ medieval and early Renaissance manuscripts. This database, which is available on the WWW, is as well a prototype image database of Early Music as a visual union catalogue. Lois Clark (Music Publishers‘ Association, London) spoke about the MPA Catalogue of Printed Music and the practicalities of administering ISMNs. First she explained the relationship between the MPA, the UK ISMN Agency and the Catalogue of Printed Music. The first edition of the MPA Catalogue was produced in 1980, Lois Clark became its editor in 1997. She dealt with the problems of establishing ISMN numbering, especially with many publishers‘ reluctance to transferring from ISBNs to ISMNs. The last speaker of the session, Hartmut Walravens (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin), gave an update of the International Standard identifiers including the recent developments since the IAML meeting in Wellington in July 1999. At the moment, there are 26 ISMN agencies covering 30 countries. Spain has become a new member, the USA are expected to take part in ISMN very soon. There will be close connections with the work of IFLA, whose committee FRANAR plays an important role as the working group on authority files.

The second meeting, a joint session with the Research Libraries Branch on Tuesday, August 8, was devoted to projects in Bibliography of Great Britain. Wyn Thomas (University of Wales, Bangor) gave an outline of the development of Welsh music and described three bibliographical projects: a bibliography of Welsh traditional music, a bibliography of Welsh art music and a handlist of manuscripts relating to the field of Welsh music. Two parts of the bibliography of Welsh traditional music are already published. Then a group of three speakers dealt with the work of the publisher and collector George Thomson, whose editions are regarded as a „most intricate bibliographical enigma". Kirsteen McCue (University of Glasgow) analysed Thomson’s collections of Scottish folk music. The various versions, issues and re-issues of his six volumes of Scottish songs were an almost unsolvable problem for bibliographers. For example, vol. 1 appeared in eight versions between 1801 and 1838. Kirsteen McCue was successful in finding a clear system of classification. Marjorie Rycroft (University of Glasgow) is preparing the Urtext edition of Haydn’s Scottish, Welsh and Irish folks songs. She described the various sources: autographs and Stichvorlagen, Thomson‘s editions, the correspondence and catalogues from Haydn and his student Sigismund Neukomm. Thomson’s role as an editor and some issues of 20th century editing completed her presentation. Finally Warwick Edwards (University of Glasgow) dealt especially with questions of authentication in George Thomson’s editions of Haydn’s Scottish airs. He presented some examples of different versions of violin and cello parts. The Preston editions show significant differences to Haydn’s originals.