Berea College (Kentucky) Davis and Elkins College (West Virginia) Ferrum College (Virginia) Assessment of Noncommercial Appalachian Music Holdings Conducted By Kip Lornell Department of Music George 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 Access Getting 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

RESPONSE Electronic 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?