On Thursday, March 17, the new version of the website ismus.is was officially opened at the museum. Ísmús − Icelandic Music and Cultural Heritage − is a database that stores and publishes on the web data relating to Icelandic culture past and present: recordings, photographs, films, manuscripts, texts and folklore. The project is managed by the Icelandic Music Museum, the National Library of Iceland – University Library and the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies. Addresses were given by Ingibjörg Steinunn Sverrisdóttir, National Librarian, and Guðrún Nordal, Director of the Árni Magnússon Institute, in addition to Rósa Þorsteinsdóttir, Jón Hrólfur Sigurjónsson, Trausti Dagsson and Bjarki Sveinbjörnsson, who spoke about the website.
The new version of Ísmús builds on the older version of the database and includes several new features. The folklore section of the website now includes the Sagnagrunninn, a database of Icelandic legends in printed folklore collections, as well as the Ævintýragrunninn, a similar database of Icelandic fairy tales. The Sagnagrunninn was originally created with the help of Terry Gunnell, professor of folklore at the University of Iceland, and the Ævintýragrunninn was compiled by Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir, professor of early Icelandic literature at the University of Iceland.
In the music section of the website, musical events from the end of the 19th century have been recorded and in due course more events will be recorded in addition to the musicians who performed and the songs that were performed. It is also possible to see connections between individuals. If it is a musician, it will be possible to see the bands they are or have been in as well as other members of the same bands. The same is true in the ethnography section of the website, where you can see in a graphical way various connections between people, whether they are related to collecting folklore or letters, but in addition to folklore, on the new website you can browse through collections of letters related to Jón Árnason, a folklore collector, and Sigurður Guðmundsson, a painter.
Along with the fact that the content has been greatly expanded, the website's appearance has been redesigned and made much more accessible for mobile phones and other smart devices.