A Quarter-Century of Success: An Interview with H. Robert Cohen, Founder and Director of the Repertoire International De la Presse Musicale (RIPM)

English Abstract H. Robert Cohen, founder and director of the international de la presse (RIPM) speaks on the beginnings and development of the project, the achievements, and how it is moving forward to embrace new technologies and offer its clients improved access not only to an annotated index of music periodicals but also full-text access to the periodicals themselves. French Abstract H. Robert Cohen, fondateur et directeur du international de la presse (RIPM), evoque debuts du projet, son evolution, ses realisations, et son integration de nouvelles technologies offrant a ses clients un meilleur acces, non seulement a l'index annote des periodiques musicaux mais egalement au plein texte des periodiques memes. German Abstract H. Robert Cohen, der Grunder und Direktor des International de la Presse Musicale (RIPM) berichtet uber die Anfange, Fortschritte und Leistungen des Projektes. Er beschreibt die Nutzung neuer Technologien zur Verbesserung des Datenzugangs fur Kunden, nicht nur zu den bibliographischen Nachweisen, sondern in der Zukunft auch zum Volltext der Zeitschriften selbst. ********** The international cooperative project Repertoire international de la presse musicale (RIPM) provides annotated indexes to nineteenth- and twentieth-century music journals, through its publications RIPM In Print, RIPM Online and RIPM on CD-ROM. In 2006, RIPM celebrated its 25th anniversary, the publication of its 200th volumes (the first volume appeared in 1988), a database containing over 500,000 annotated records, and the birth of the RIPM Online Archive of Music Periodicals (full-text). As a background to these achievements, I interviewed Dr. Cohen and invited him to discuss RIPM's creation, development, and remarkable success. MB: Who were you 35 years ago, 30 years ago and 25 years ago when RIPM was created? Interesting question. Thirty-five years ago, I was teaching in the Anglo-American Department of the then-new University of Paris XII (Vincennes)--a faculty created after what the French call les manifestations de '68. There I taught, among other things, the history of jazz and the history of English music. It was an exciting time to be living and working in Paris. One of the government-defined goals for the new university was to democratize higher education by making it accessible to those previously unable to attend. In its first couple of years, this experiment was a success. Thereafter, it was less so, with an increase in the number of students and static funding. At the same time I was working on my dissertation for New York University on Berlioz's music criticism, and spending a good deal of time at the Bibliotheque nationale turning pages of nineteenth-century music journals. Thirty years ago I was teaching at Universite Laval in Quebec City, and a few years thereafter at the University of British Columbia where the idea of creating RIPM began to take on a concrete form. MB: Could you tell me what happened 25 years ago--was this one of Barry Brook's project ideas or did the impetus come from elsewhere? During my years in Paris and at Universite Laval, I worked with Marcello Conati on a project, came to know Christoph-Helmut Mahling, initially through my work on iconography, and a number of other European and American musicologists. Over the years we discussed our work on the press and learned that many colleagues were also quite frustrated at the seemingly endless page turning, and that there was a recognized need to create a tool offering access to the press. At the time I thought that was a sufficient condition to move forward and to propose to IAML and the IMS the creation of RIPM. I remember Barry asking me if I knew what I was getting myself into. My response was a shrug; his was a smile. No, RIPM was not one of Barry's ideas but it would be difficult to imagine RIPM without Barry. …

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