Founded in 1993 at the University of Oslo and re-established as a private foundation in 2001, NOTAM is a production centre for work with sound - in music, research, education and mediation. The most important function for NOTAM is its services to the creative community in music, extending naturally into sound art and cross-media and interdisciplinary art expression. And with the common use of technology in the production of almost any music, NOTAM has reshaped itself into becoming a centre for all genres of contemporary music.

NOTAM serves the art community in various ways: through making studios, labs and technical assistance available at no or low cost, through building hardware and software for specific purposes, through educational efforts for children, youth and students at universities and music academies, and through advicement for doctoral students and international guests. NOTAM produces a number of events every year, conferences, concerts, installations, a lecture-series with weekly presentations.

On a semi-commercial basis, NOTAM also takes on production of relevant events for others - installations, concerts, conferences, etc.

Every year, a good number of works are produced in the studios and through use of NOTAM's resources. NOTAM can suggest works for concert programming, upon request. NOTAM's much-used software for the SGI platform has now been ported to Linux, and is available from its web pages, both as source and compiled programs. Its DSP-package for children has been reprogrammed in Java, and is freely available in English, French, Swedish and Norwegian.

NOTAMs system for pure tuning, developed on the basis of Eivind Groven's system, and in collaboration with David Code, is also available for download.

NOTAM is one of the founding members of ULTIMA Oslo Contemporary Music Festival.