jewish music online: digital fieldwork
DESCRIPTION
Presented in the panel, "Jewish Music Online: Analog Repositories, Digital Fieldwork, and the Web of Collaborative Tools," at the 42nd Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies, Boston (Mass.), December 20, 2010.TRANSCRIPT
Digital Fieldwork
Francesco SpagnoloThe Magnes Collection of Jewish Art & Life
Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley
Jewish Music OnlineAnalog Repositories, Digital Fieldwork
and the Web of Collaborative Tools
Association for Jewish StudiesBoston, Dec. 20 2010
Let’s try to clarify what Digital Fieldwork is NOT… I will use YouTube as an example.
This is what happens in doing “research” on Jewish music in Azerbaijan online. (Link courtesy of Edwin Seroussi)
But on YouTube I can also find…
…my own wife (and primary sources on the development of new Jewish rituals)
…or a primary source on Jewish-Christians co-territorial repertoires in Piedmont, Italy
Way better than the archival recordings I researched worldwide (despite the grungy video)
YET, DIGITAL FIELDWORK
IS NOT THE SAME AS
RETRIEVING AND VERIFYING THE AUTHENTICITY OF
INFORMATION ONLINE…
Analog sources kept in archival repositories worldwide include
• texts (books, articles, etc.) about music• literary sources describing musical practices• musical sources (manuscript & printed music)
• audio recordings• video
Digital sources kept in archival repositories worldwide and in the www jungle include:
(Some of) All of the above:• texts (books, articles, etc.) about music• literary sources describing musical practices• musical sources (manuscript & printed music)
• audio recordings and video+
Catalogs: libraries, archives, music publishers+
Social media content (Some of all of the above, but not only from institutional sources: also
scholars, practitioners, culture bearers, performers, educators, collectors, listeners, fans…)
Institutional Content: The Digitized Book Repository of The National Library of Israel (Music Section)
Formerly known as Jewish National and University Library (JNUL): http://jnul.huji.ac.il
JNUL Digitized Book Repository – Music: A. Z. Idelsohn Vol. 6 (DjVu format)
Institutional Content: The National Library of Israel: National Sound Archives (NSA)Full Catalog - Search Results for “nigun” (best searched in Hebrew)
The NSA is about to launch its digitization project online (currently non-public beta)
Social Media (Crowdsourced) Content: piyut.org.il
Piyut.org.il includes user-contributed content (texts and musical recordings of Hebrew liturgical poems) derived in part from commercial recordings and from the holdings of the National Sound Archives (NSA)
Disparity in access to sourcesaka
another aspect of the digital divide
"easy" access to digital sources online may penalize analog sources available onsite
yet, we all acknowledge that today’s fieldwork needs to include online sources,
including social media
In this presentation, I focus on sounds online
Dubious status of audio sources available through social media:
• lack of metadata, • lack of metadata control
• lack of unifying standard, leading to...
The Very Pressing Problem of Sound Online
How can we negotiate the contrast between:
a. A superb commercial interface (iTunes), dedicated to selling commercial recordings
b. The grim state of the visual representation of sound on the web (an eminently visual platform)
(this includes social media: there is currently no comparable platform to YouTube/video Flickr/images available to sounds)
Options for digital sound online: The Internet Archive (archive.org)
The Holy Quran is the most downloaded audio file on IA
Note:
•Streaming box
•Multiple download options
Options for digital sound online: The Internet Archive (archive.org)
The Holy Quran is the most downloaded audio file on IA
Note:
•Exportable metadata (.xml)
•Support for “comments”
Options for digital sound online: The Internet Archive (archive.org)
Summary: good metadata structure – minimal visualization of sound – EMBED CODES – exportable
metadata (xml) – "comments” – LONGEVITY
Options for digital sound online: SoundCloud (soundcloud.com)
Options for digital sound online: SoundCloud (soundcloud.com)
Individual sound track view (“soundwave” visualization)
Options for digital sound online: SoundCloud (soundcloud.com)
Sound-friendly metadata support
Options for digital sound online: SoundCloud (soundcloud.com)
A host of dedicated applications
Options for digital sound online: SoundCloud (soundcloud.com)
Summary: best metadata – best visualization – no directly exportable metadata – licensing – embed
codes – "comments” & “tags” – LONGEVITY???
Options for digital sound online: YouTube (youtube.com)
Summary: Worst metadata – visualization via images (stills, slideshows, videos) – embed codes – no directly exportable metadata – licensing – "comments” & “tags” – LONGEVITY? (google) –
ANNOTATIONS – VARYING LEVES OF PERMISSIONS
Options for digital sound online: content-specific aggregators
Black Sabbath (Idelsohn Society)Aggregates culturally-specific content from social media (including YouTube &
SoundCloud), a dedicated platform-specific application (iPhone), and marketing tools
Options for digital sound online: content-specific aggregators
Summary: Horrible metadata – visualization via images (stills, slideshows, videos) – no directly
exportable metadata – no licensing – "comments” & “tags” – LONGEVITY??? – ANNOTATIONS via Social Media Aggregation – dedicated app – blurred lines between
content and marketing are confusing
Where is fieldwork in all this?
Music online offers a platform for collaborative fieldwork
But it currently requires making some choices regarding
- Metadata structures- Platform
How collaborative fieldwork can, well, work:
The adoption of flickr.com by the Library of Congress and a host of other institutions worldwide joining the Flickr Commons established de facto a standard for images
How collaborative fieldwork can, well, work:
Flickr’s support for exportable metadata standards, dating tools, geolocation, tags (also machine-generated), licensing, comments, varying levels of permissions AND annotations
looks like an excellent model for sounds online
Digital FieldworkEmerging practice, based on:
• collaborative tools & research practices rather than digital sources alone
• notion of distributed rather than centralized knowledge brought forth by the digital humanities
pilot projectJewish Digital Narratives
of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and LifeBancroft Library, UC Berkeley
Digital FieldworkAgents of collaboration may include:
institutions scholars
librarians & archivistspractitioners,
culture bearersperformerseducatorscollectors
listeners & fans…
Digital FieldworkThe absence of a dedicated tool may actually present
us with the opportunity of crafting one that supports all of the following:
Sound-specific metadata structure – dating tools – geolocation – sound-friendly visualization – embed
codes – exportable metadata – "comments” & “tags” (including machine-readable tags) – annotations options – longevity (aka digital preservation) –
licensing (including CreativeCommons)