Berea College (Kentucky)

Davis and Elkins College (West Virginia)

Ferrum College (Virginia)

Assessment of Noncommercial Appalachian

Music Holdings

Conducted ByKip Lornell

Department of MusicGeorge Washington University

Fall 2006

“American music – especially grassroots and popular music – is clearly the growth area in music

departments across the United States.”

Kip Lornell

• 25,000 Plus Unique Performances

• Documenting 20th Century Daily Music Life in Appalachian Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia

• Portraying the Diversity of Appalachian Music

• Ethnicity• Instrumentation• Singing Style• Religious Expression

Collections Description

Common Characteristics

• Large Collections of High Quality Material

• Well Cared For, Physically

• Aging, Obsolescent Formats

– Predominantly Reel-to-Reel Audio Tape

• Permission Rights /Deeds of Gift

Common Characteristics

•Underutilized

• Locally• Commercial Documentary Recordings• Broader Scholarly Community

•Limited Institutional Funding

• Long Term Preservation• Electronic Access

Materials Of Particular Importance Contained In The Collections

• Berea – Hymnody

• Davis and Elkins – Helvitica (Swiss-German) Songs and Tunes

• Ferrum – African American Songs and Tunes

Analog Preservation Copying Portions of Collections• Ferrum• Davis and Elkins• Berea

• Online Audio – Digital Library of Appalachia (DLA)• Berea• Ferrum

• Access Through Institutional Web Pages

• Berea (Item Level Searching)• Davis and Elkins (General Information)• Ferrum (Item Level Searching)

Preservation and Access Measures – Past and Present

Additional Access and Preservation Measures

Berea College

• High Resolution Digital Preservation Copies

• Dedicated Server Storage

• Fellowships to Promote Scholarly Use

• Collection Level OPAC / OCLC Records

• Digital Assets Management System (July 2007)

Berea, Davis & Elkins and Ferrum’s many worthy online music samples and contextual

exhibits “merely tickle the surface of what could and should be done with this music.”

Kipp Lornell

• Long Term Preservation (Digitization)

• Personnel• Equipment• Storage

Improving Scholarly AccessGetting Beyond “Merely Tickling the Surface”

Improving Scholarly Access

• Web Based Models

– American Memory Project– Stratman-Thomas Collection– British Library Sound Archive– Digital Library of Appalachia (DLA)

Lornell’s Super Model

Something Like JSTOR / ARTstor

“MSTOR”

– ACA Collections– Indiana University– Arhoolie (Commercial)– Delmark ( Commercial)

Presented by

Judy Muyskens Appalachian College Association

Harry Rice Berea College

RESPONSE

• Preservation

Definition (Digitization Standards)

Transfer (Hardware) File Configuration (Interoperability) Server Storage Personnel Qualification

Strategy

Developing Local Capacity Outsourcing

RESPONSEElectronic Access

“MSTOR” Alternatives / Parallels

Building On What We Already Have

“Appalachian Memory Project” (A Beefed Up Digital Library of

Appalachia)

Enhancement of Those Electronic Resources That “Merely Tickle

the Surface.”

RESPONSE

• Digitizing - Maybe One Size Doesn’t Fit All• Central Remote Server

Control – Ownership

Loss of Institutional Identity • Would Commercial and Noncommercial

Mix Well?• “MSTOR” Access Less User Friendly,

More Exclusive, Costlier Than American Memory, DLA, Etc?