Songs at the Interface: Community interactions with online collections

The last decade has seen a huge effort on the part of institutions and individuals to digitise audiovisual cultural heritage collections. Archival recordings of songs are often in demand for reasons such as family history, education, language revival work and to support intergenerational transmission of cultural practices. In Australia and elsewhere, tensions between institutions and communities may surround access to songs and similar materials. This seminar talk by Professor Linda Barwick (University of Sydney) will consider some conundrums and complexities surrounding the sharing of archival materials on- and off-line.

Professor Linda Barwick is a musicologist based at The University of Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music. With research interests centred on the role of music in social identity and place, she has undertaken fieldwork in Australia, Italy and the Philippines, and has collaborated with linguists, historians and Indigenous researchers in numerous community-based projects documenting song traditions. She participates in several Australian Research Council projects dealing with revitalisation of song and languages.