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Abstract
Worldwide, a burgeoning number of volunteer-run do-it-yourself (DIY) archives, museums and halls of fame are preserving the vernacular, local and global experiences of popular music’s history. Little is known about the characteristics of these heritage sites in a collective sense. This article summarizes the findings of several research projects that examined the ways in which cultural memory is captured within community archives. Specifically, this article details the outcomes of a database that compiled information gathered on 41 community-based archives, museums and halls of fame. Data on key features of these DIY institutions was collected through a variety of methods, including on-site observation, interviews with volunteers and web searches. This article discusses such things as geographical location, funding, staffing, mission statements and the focus of collections. The analysis of this information reveals that many DIY institutions have similar characteristics, such as building types and preservation aims, and face recurring challenges including funding issues and an ageing volunteer workforce. In summarizing the properties of a large number of DIY institutions, the article contributes an informational resource that was previously unavailable to researchers in the area of community archiving and popular music heritage.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Bennett, “Heritage Rock,” 477.
2. Baker, Doyle, and Homan, “Historical Records, National Constructions”.
3. Brandellero and Janssen, “Popular Music, Cultural Heritage,” 225.
4. Flinn, “Attack on Professionalism and Scholarship?,” para 17.
5. See: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/dis/icarus/projects/community-archives/tab-box/Project_description.pdf.
6. Bennett and Peterson, “Introducing Music Scenes,” 8–9.
7. Caswell, “Toward a Survivor-centred Approach”; Flinn, “Community Histories, Community Archives”.
8. Gray, “Archives, Outreach and Community,” 3.
9. See: Baker and Collins, “Sustaining Popular Music’s Material Culture”.
10. Baker and Huber, “Notes Towards a Typology”.
11. Roberts and Cohen, “Unauthorising Popular Music Heritage,” 248.
12. See note 9 above.
13. Flinn, “Community Histories, Community Archives”; Flinn, “Attack on Professionalism and Scholarship?”; Flinn, Stevens, and, Shepherd, “Whose Memories, Whose Archives?”; and Stevens, Flinn, and Shepherd “Community Engagement in Archives”.
14. Flinn, Stevens, and Shepherd, “Whose Memories, Whose Archives?,” 73.
15. Stevens, Flinn, and Shepherd, “Community Engagement in Archives,” 59.
16. Cook, “Evidence, Memory, Identity, Community,” 114.
17. See: Fisher “British Institute of Recorded Sound”.
18. See note 9 above.
19. Reynolds, Retromania.
20. See: Leonard, “Engaging Nostalgia”; and Mortensen and Madsen, “Sound of Yesteryear on Display”.
21. Beaster-Jones, “Hindi Film Songs and Heritage”; Jaraba, “Proyecto Caracas Memorabilia”; and Kong, “Popular Music in Singapore”.
22. Sutton, “The Australian Jazz Museum”.
23. Ibid.
24. Stevens, Flinn, and Shepherd, “Community Engagement in Archives,” 60 (orig. emph.).
25. Busby, “Editions of You,” 233.
26. See: Baker and Huber, “Masters of Our Own Destiny”.
27. See note 4 above.
28. Baym and Burnett, “Amateur Experts”.
29. See note 26 above.
30. See note 9 above.
31. Baker and Huber, “Masters of Our Own Destiny,” 276–9.
32. See note 26 above.
33. See Baker and Huber, “Saving ‘Rubbish’”.
34. See for example, McKee, “YouTube versus NFSA,” in regard to access issues to the audiovisual collection of the National Film and Sound Archive.
35. See note 26 above.
36. See note 9 above.
37. Baker and Huber, “Notes Towards a Typology,” 526.
38. See note 26 above.
39. Leonard, “The Shaping of Heritage”.
40. See note 26 above.
41. See note 7 above.
42. Bastian and Alexander, “Introduction: Communities and Archives,” xxii.
43. Baker, “Affective Archiving”.
44. Ketelaar “A Living Archive,” 29; Smith, Uses of Heritage, 2.
45. See note 26 above.