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Download into the BL:Digital Sound Recordings and the British Library

Alex Wilson

This is every national anthem in the world, combined:

This was created by taking recordings of all 192 national anthems and playing them beside

each other, so that they all end together in one glorious, messy racket.

Source: www.nationalanthems.me

It is designed as an audio illustration of the huge task at hand facing the British Library Sound Archive in 2014

It is our job as guardians of the nation’s audio memory to somehow make sense of the current landscape…

this becomes even more difficult in the digital domain.

So much NOISE to decipher

our filter is forced to open that bit wider.

"The 20th century was about audiovisual material, our memory of the 20th century is heavily audiovisual, but our sense of the 21st century is going to be a different kind of audiovisual...

archiving is not going to be so much about what we can bring in, but about what to exclude,“

Will Prentice, British Library Audio Engineer and Conservation Specialist.

If given endless resources we could potentially download , archive, stream and

link to music from all these places…

And these places

And then these places

Naturally, some of the sources listed in these slides are of questionable ethical, moral and audio quality…

but we can’t ignore they exist. More on which later.

So there stands a brief overview of the digital landscape in 2014.

The noise, the confusion, the scale, the formats, the legal, the illegal, the streamed, the free, the d2c. The subscriptions, the majors, the independents, the boutiques, the takeovers, the videos, the apps, the music and more music and more music and more music and more music and more music and more music and more music and more music and more music and more music and more music and more music and more music and more

But you knew all that

So, what is the British Library doing with digital

sound and music?

• Engaged in a six month project started in October 2013

• Set up with funds made available to help develop BL-wide transition to acquisition of digital materials

• Current Situation: physical and digital UK sound recordings collected under voluntary arrangements because legal deposit doesn’t cover recordings

• This needs constant attention, chasing existing suppliers, and identifying new ones. Digital domain, in theory becomes easier

• Lacking in technical infrastructure to engage with labels and partners across the fast moving digital supply chain

• Current digital collecting ad hoc, not scalable, laborious.

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Metable @ BL

Metable@BL

Camden based developers http://www.metable.co/

Specialising in catalogue management platforms for record labels, aggregators and retailers

They have been tasked with providing a bespoke interface between the rights holders in the music industry and our own systems

Allow us to acquire, ingest and catalogue music from the digital music supply chain.

The key functionality for Metable@BL system is:-

• Take deliveries via ftp from specified parties (independent labels, aggregators, delivery platforms)

• Suppliers, where possible, to submit in DDEX Standard v3.3 / 3.5

• Provide an interface for British Library curators to check and edit products

• Convert file types and create deliverable formats to ingest into our systems

• Augment metadata with extra data from Decibel, Musicbrainz and Discogs

API Integration

Background : a means is required to supplement our commercial acquisitions with a new data source, post-Rovi / Gracenote / National Discography / Searchmuze etc. etc. etc. etc.

• The Metadata Augmentation through API’s system shall be integrated within the Metable@BL interface providing augmentation of products within the system

• Also allow curators, cataloguers , accessions to query the APIs on an ad-hoc basis to enrich legacy collections. Datasets such as Discogs, Musicbrainz, Decibel to be applied

Metable@BL looks a bit like this

NB: BETA VERSION

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Building Relationships

For this infrastructure to work we need to have strong links with labels, aggregators, data bodies-

the industry

Pop

Beggars Group will be delivered though CI then normalised by Metable@BL and data exported to Sound Archive Catalogue

Full back catalogue (2k releases) assets successfully delivered to local storage already

Ongoing negotiations with labels about this model. Plan to build relationships with a small set of key UK independents to agree terms for this pilot stage. A set of donation guidelines have been drawn up;

We can offer in-perpetuity storage of physical and digital assets in optimum archival state

Offer access to these recordings to researchers on-site through our access portal, Soundserver to generations of researchers

World and Traditional Music

We have relationships with big UK players Proper Music and Harmonia Mundi. Meetings to be arranged to asses interest / logistics of digital deposit.

Hopefully direct deals to be struck with smaller independents such as….

Classical

Possibly forge connections with major digital operators like Deutsche Grammophon, Decca?

Persuade smaller UK labels to deposit, Hyperion and NMC talks underway

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Collecting and connecting to digital outside of the “traditional” models

d2c platforms

Soundcloud / Ethnocloud

FreeMP3

Public Domain / open music

Connecting

Connecting and integrating to “open” content via API’s

Ethical , legal , moral concerns?

When does music stop being music?

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Plans for the future

• Develop Metable into fully functioning platform – add features

• Continue to encourage labels to interact with the Sound Archive and donate their material

• Continue to work with tech/metadata partners on new and innovative collaborations

• Explore possible connections with partner organisations on high level DCMS backed schemes; BBC , BFI, wider academia etc.

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Thank You

Any further enquiries or interest about donating digital or physical to the sound archive:

Digital : alex.wilson@bl.ukPhysical : andy.linehan@bl.uk

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Questions?