The LIO archive is made up of many interrelated sections, each of which responds to different needs and purposes:

a) Census and description of manuscripts containing early lyric poetry. The project includes the creation of a general catalogue of all the manuscripts, with brief but comprehensive descriptions of each song book indexed, beginning with the Censimento dei manoscritti di rime di Dante by D. De Robertis, duly integrated with manuscripts containing lyric texts by authors other than Dante, from the 13th and 14th centuries. The FEF has purchased microfilms of the main manuscripts. Currently (2024), the archive contains over 500 descriptions (in some cases partial) of manuscripts - including census and index of contents.

b) Indexing of the contents of the manuscripts. In the LIO database each song book described is annotated with a detailed analysis of the contents according to a model of data collection that includes the transcription of the attribution as indicated in the rubric, of the first and last lines, the identification of each text (linked to the archive pertaining to Authors and Texts) and other information deemed relevant.

c) Specific bibliography of the editions and of the studies on the manuscript tradition. The editorial board of LIO has undertaken a complete review and recording of the editions and of the philological bibliography of texts and manuscripts, in order to establish the frame of reference of the state of the research, to which the Repertory belongs. The bibliography is constantly updated.

d) Repertory of the authors and of the texts (including anonymous works)

A database has been set up that records all the texts attributed by the scholarship to each author, as well as those texts that are attributed in the manuscript tradition. The Repertory will combine this archive with those concerning the indexing of the manuscripts (b) and with the bibliography (c). Currently (2024) the archive Author/Text has been completed for authors active up to the mid-fourteenth century, with even subsequent incursions.