In this post, guest
blogger Lauren Istvandity provides an overview of a journal article written by
Sarah Baker which was recently published in Archives and Records. The article, titled ‘Do-it-yourself institutions of popular
music heritage: the preservation of music’s material past in community
archives, museums and halls of fame’, emerges from research undertaken for the
ARC funded project ‘Do-it-yourself archives of popular music’.
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The idea of
autonomy from larger formalized practices of heritage preservation that
characterises DIY archives, museums and halls of fame may encourage a view of
these places as non-conformist, perhaps disorganised and wide-ranging in their manifestations.
In a new article on DIY music heritage institutions, Sarah Baker demonstrates
that while the subject matter of such places is indeed wide ranging, there are
a great number of similarities that further characterise DIY institutions
world-wide.
Baker’s latest
sole-authored article, “Do-it-yourself institutions of
popular music heritage: The preservation of music’s material past in community
archives, museums and halls of fame” draws on a database of technical
information regarding places of DIY popular music preservation compiled from
web searches and interviews with curators and volunteers. Data collected
included information about the geographical location, staffing, preservation
missions, funding, and collection focus among other aspects of DIY institutions
around the world. With the limitations of using the English language in
internet search engines, it was found that the majority of DIY museums,
archives, and halls of fame were located predominantly in the United States and
Europe, with an increasing number occurring in Australia and New Zealand.
Interestingly, most of the currently active DIY institutions
were established between 2000 and 2014, which also coincides with a global
obsession with nostalgia and tangible pop culture artefacts from recent history
(e.g. vinyl records, 1970s floral print patterns, music genre revivals), a
trend Simon Reynolds calls ‘retromania’. The consistency of DIY institutions
opening over this period of time indicates a commitment to preserving popular
music’s heritage, something that can only be viewed as beneficial to our
culture.
As shown in
Baker’s earlier publications, funding, staffing, and housing for artefacts are
among the most problematic aspects for DIY institutions. For those in the
database, it was documented that these institutions can be found in a broad
variety of physical places. Most commonly, collections end up in residential,
historical, or purpose built facilities, however many of these are still not
ideal for the preservation of audio visual materials. About ninety percent of
DIY institutions covered in the database are run by volunteers, with the
remainder comprising a combination of paid staff, interns, and volunteers. The
funding utilised by these places is similarly cobbled together from a number of
sources, including government grants, membership fees, donations, and
merchandise sales, but most of all, DIY institutions rely on in-kind support
from multi-talented volunteers and community members.
The focus of
DIY music museums, archives and halls of fame vary, though nearly a quarter of
those included in the database have based their collection around just one
artist, the most popular being Elvis Presley. Genres of music have also scored
a majority of these institutions’ attention, with popular, country and jazz
music and their niche sub-genres making up around half of all foci. Practices
of preserving popular music’s material past most commonly comes in the form of
physical artefact collection, with all sites exhibiting tangible ephemera over
any other medium. The ethos behind these collections varies, however the
majority of institutions listed aims akin to the phrases ‘to collect’, ‘to
preserve’, and ‘to archive’. The use of DIY popular music collections is
generally not restricted to a particular type of audience, although around 30
percent of sites were particularly welcoming to researchers.
