Recent backend updates mean Cantus Database source records are now findable in RISM Online! See their winter 2025 update: https://rism.info/rism_digital_center/2025/03/13/rism-online-winter-2025-update.html

For more, you are welcome to attend our online Workshop 23, "RISM Integration" (details here), on Friday, March 28, 2025. Write to us for the Zoom link if you are not already on the DACT email list.

Not only did we present at the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance (Wellington, New Zealand, 9 Jan 2025) on the global reach of plainchant (to Taiwan, the Americas, and beyond), but we also made it to the University of Sydney (17 Jan 2025) where the Rare Books and Special Collections team hosted us in an amazing hands-on workshop. See more: https://www.library.sydney.edu.au/about/news/dact-visit

From the Archive to a Global Online Network

Does your library have hidden treasures? We invite graduate and upper-year undergraduate students currently studying at North American universities to apply for four short-term positions to help describe and inventory fragments of chant manuscripts in North America--whether in public libraries, private collections, or in university collections. These manuscripts  can give valuable insights about historical musical practices--but only if their data is accessible. We need your help!

You will

*contribute to one of the longest-running digital musicology projects

create online publications in a database used by tens of thousands of people each year in a variety of fields

*become part of a network of chant scholars across the globe

*help bring to light chant sources in North America

*contribute to the understanding of historical music and music books

… and perhaps discover some hidden gems!

Previous experience with chant not required! You will be mentored by members of the Digital Analysis of Chant Transmission (DACT) team. An honorarium of $500 will be given to each participant. This opportunity, “From the Archive to a Global Online Network: Teaching Students How to Inventory their Institutions’ Chant Manuscript Fragments on the Cantus Database” is funded by the AMS Early Music Program Fund with matching funds provided by the DACT project.

If interested, before December 1, 2024, send information about your academic year, your affiliation, the name of a Faculty supervisor or a referee who can support your application, and a brief description of interest (maximum 200 words) to  dact.fragments@gmail.com, copied to Debra Lacoste (debra.lacoste@dal.ca) and Anna de Bakker (anna.debakker@mcgill.ca).

We are collecting references! Have you used DIAMM, the Cantus Database, or the Cantus Index for research, publications, presentations, performances, or teaching this year? Please help us fill our annual report for the Digital Research Alliance with lists of all the many ways that these online resources have aided your activities this past year. If you reported any items last year as forthcoming and they have now appeared, please report them again. Please send citations or descriptions by Wednesday, October 23rd to Debra at debra.lacoste@dal.ca. Thank you so much!

ADVANCE WARNING: Hello chant researchers! There are some software upgrades required at the Cantus Index (https://cantusindex.org), so the login function to add new chants will be temporarily closed on Mon Aug 26.

The site will always be available to view!

We anticipate that the login for new contributions will be available in the first half of September.

Please let us know if you have any questions at cantusdatabase@gmail.com or dact.chant@gmail.com.

This Friday, July 5, 2024, at 5 PM CEST, Dr. Anna de Bakker, Postdoctoral Researcher for the DACT Project, Dalhousie University, will present: "Leaves and Links: Enhancing Fragmentarium’s collection of musically-notated liturgical chant fragments."

She will be presenting her behind-the-scenes work on the Fragmentarium and Cantus web platforms, enriching both in a spectacular example of cross-project collaboration.

Registration is via Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0lc-mtrzkqGtxBAaIrEDXa0crha1wKCHDQ

The Cantus Database will be undergoing scheduled maintenance on Saturday, May 18, 2024. The website will be available for consultation but not for entering any new data. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Also, please note that additional server maintenance is scheduled for Wednesday, June 5, 2024 from 6:30-10:30 AM PT (UTC -7). During this time there may be periods of no network access, so please plan accordingly.

Starting today, May 1, 2024, all cantus.uwaterloo.ca traffic is being redirected to cantusdatabase.org. All of your cantus.uwaterloo.ca addresses and bookmarks should take you seamlessly to the new domain name. No action is required on your part and you will probably not even notice anything new (unless you look in your address bar!).

If you want to update your bookmarks, use cantusdatabase.org at the start of all of your CantusDB https:// addresses.

Thank you to the University of Waterloo for hosting the Cantus Database since 2011, and for setting up these permanent redirects. For anyone interested where the data is served, UW will now host our Cantus Index catalogue, and the Cantus Database is hosted by the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, funded through the Digital Analysis of Chant Transmission project based at Dalhousie University (SSHRC 895-2023-1002).

Book collector Nick Alexander found fragments of medieval chant manuscripts in 18th-century book bindings, and sought to find out more by reaching out to the Digital Analysis of Chant Transmission project and the Cantus Database. His story was picked up by NBC in Connecticut.

Click here to watch!

Click here for the description of DACT included on the website of the Eberhard Karls Universität in Tübingen.