A national electronic database of special music collections in South Africa
Date
2009-03
Authors
De Jongh, Martha Susanna
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch
Abstract
In the absence of a state-sponsored South African archive that focuses on collecting,
ordering, cataloguing and preserving special music collections for research, the
Documentation Centre for Music (DOMUS) was established in 2005 as a research
project at the University of Stellenbosch. Music research in South Africa is often
impeded by inaccessibility of materials, staff shortages at archives and libraries,
financial constraints and time-consuming ordering and cataloguing processes.
Additionally there is, locally, restricted knowledge of the existence, location and
status of relevant primary sources. Accessibility clearly depends on knowing of the
existence of materials, as well as the extent to which collections have been ordered
and catalogued.
An overview of repositories such as the Nasionale Afrikaanse Letterkundige Museum
and Navorsingsentrum (NALN), the now defunct National Documentation Centre for
Music and the International Library of African Music (ILAM) paints a troubling
picture of archival neglect and disintegration. Apart from ILAM, which has a very
specific collecting and research focus, this trend was one that ostensibly started in the
1980s and is still continuing. It could be ascribed to a lack of planning and forward
thinking under the previous political dispensation, aggravated by policies of
transformation and restructuring in the current one.
Existing sources supporting research on primary materials are dated and not
discipline-specific. Thus this study aims to address issues of inaccessibility of primary
music materials by creating a comprehensive and ongoing national electronic database
of special music collections in South Africa. It is hoped that this will help to alert
researchers to the existence and status of special music collections housed at various
levels of South African academic and civil society.
Description
Thesis (MMus (Music))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.
Keywords
Music research, Music collections, Special music collections, Documentation Centre for Music (DOMUS), Dissertations -- Music, Theses -- Music