Book Description

This unique book is based on the results of a workshop for an international group of administrators of research-based archives held near New Delhi in December 1999, the aim of which was to bring together archivists from audio and visual archives in industrializing countries, principally from the Southern Hemisphere, which have a relatively recent history of audiovisual archives; to take concerns of audiovisual archives outside the national and regional boundaries that so often define these archives; and to focus on audiovisual archives that document musical and folklore traditions and thus those which are involved with ethnomusicology. Pooling the experience of participants from Austria, Australia, China, Cuba, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Peru, The Philippines, South Africa, Sudan and the United States, the volume will be of interest to cultural workers both as an introductory textbook in ethnomusicology courses and as a book for specialists. The book begins with a theoretical introduction including general observations on archives, a discussion of the principal points in the participant papers, a description of the workshop itself and how the process of the workshop has been transformed into this volume. Section One deals with archive structure and operations, including a chapter on recording technology for audio archives which begins with a paper by the world-renowned expert in technology for audiovisual archives, Dr Dietrich Schüller, Director of the Vienna Phonogramm-Archiv, Austria, the oldest such archive in the world and one on issues of copyright and ethics. Section Two consists of the participants papers. The volume also includes useful material such as a bibliography of major resources on audiovisual archives and a website list of the most important professional organizations and archive sites. Anthony Seeger is Professor of Ethnomusicology at University of California at Los Angeles. He has been Director of the Archives of Traditional Music, University of Indiana and Director of Smithsonian Folkways recordings and the Curator of the archives. He has consulted internationally and published widely on issues of archiving in ethnomusicology and on intellectual property rights. He has been the President of the Society of Ethnomusicology and is currently Secretary General of the International Council of Traditional Music. Shubha Chaudhuri is Director of the Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology of the American Institute of Indian Studies. She has a background in Linguistics and has been with the ARCE for the last twenty years. She has been very actively involved in issues of archiving as well as training workshops and consulting in this field. She is Vice President, International Association of Sound and Audio Visual Archives. Contributors include: Dr Dietrich Schüller (Vienna, Austria), Don Niles (Papua New Guinea), Alex Huerta (Peru), Ali Al-Daw (Sudan), Maxwell Addo (Ghana), Marialita Tamanio-Yraola (Philippines), To Ngoc Thanh (Vietnam), Valmont Layne (South Africa), Endo Suanda (Indonesia) Gert-Matthias Wegner (Nepal), J. Lawrence Witzleben and Tsui Ying-Fai (China), Olavo Alen (Cuba), Grace Koch (Australia).