The US performing rights societies ASCAP and BMI start cooperation to create a new comprehensive musical works database. It will deliver an authoritative view of ownership shares in the vast majority of music licensed in the United States. It will offer industry-wide data transparency and include song and composition titles, performing artist information, aggregated shares by society for ASCAP and BMI, International Standard Work Codes and other unique identifiers as well as IPI names and numbers. View more information on the ASCAP website https://www.ascap.com/press/2017/07-26-ascap-bmi-database or on the BMI website https://www.bmi.com/news/entry/bmi-ascap-announce-creation-of-new-musical-works-database.

The Frankfurt Book Fair, one of the most important book fairs in the world, will welcome the international publishing world from 11 October till 15 October 2017. This year's Guest of honor will be France. View more information here: https://buchmesse.de/en/fbf/.

The virtual library Europeana Music, supported by Europeana sounds, now brings together more than 371,000 music recordings, pieces of sheet music and other music items from across Europe. Access to these items can be found at http://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/collections/music.

IAML, the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres, held its annual congress in Riga, Latvia, from 18 - 22 June. Reports and papers presented there - including an ISMN update - are continuously put on their website and can be viewed at http://www.iaml.info/congresses/2017-riga.

The U.S. music rights organization SESAC and the Swiss collective management organization SUISA allied in Mint Digital Services to administer licenses to use musical compositions in multi-territorial online music services on behalf of publshers. The company will be responsible for invoicing and administration of these licence agreements with online service providers.
View the press release at https://www.suisa.ch/nc/en/suisa/stay-informed/recent-news/detail/artikel/2017/mar/suisa-und-sesac-starten-mint-und-gewinnen-warnerchappell-music-als-ersten-kunden.html.

"Imagine looking at original handwritten manuscripts of a piece of music while listening to different interpretations of it, and reading a biography of the composer."
Europeana Music is a new websource bringing together music recordings, sheet music and other music related collections of libraries, archives and museums across Europe. So far, more than 320,000 items are to view at http://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/collections/music.