Blog Post_ Community Collaboration In Ethnomusicology Archives: Ethical Considerations For Collections Management

Posted by: Martin, Melissa

Citation: VanCour, S & Vallier, J. (2021). Community collaboration in ethnomusicology archives:

    Ethical considerations for collections management. ARSC Journal. 52(1). https://link-gale-com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/apps/doc/A663758128/AONE?u=csusj&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=2407f723

Summary

This article addresses two collections – Melville Jacobs Collection and Crocodile Café Collection. The idea of addressing these specific collections is to evaluate the “nature and ethics of collection ownership and access” and “reimagined traditional principles of collection stewardship, embracing a collaborative, community-oriented approach as the cornerstone for ethical management of recorded sound collections in contemporary ethnomusicology archives” (VanCour & Vallier, 2021).  

The Melville Jacobs collection consists of 96 Edison and Ediphone cylinders and over 100 varies disc sizes of other materials (VanCour & Vallier, 2021). They document music, language, and stories from Snohomish, Tulalip, Puyallup, Snoqualmie, and Duwamish peoples (VanCour & Vallier, 2021).  The materials also document other Pacific Northwest communities, like the Cowlitz of Oregon, Semiahmoo of British Columbia, and Carcross/Tagish First Nation of the Yukon (VanCour & Vallier, 2021). They are developing an free open-sourced content management system that follows an ethically grounded access model called Mukurtu, with collaboration with local tribal communities (VanCour & Vallier, 2021). This helps remove colonial barriers and acknowledges the tribal communities having ownership of their songs and stories that were recorded by Jacobs and empowering to define the level of access granted to their heritage materials (VanCour & Vallier, 2021).

The Crocodile Café Collection consists of 3,000 hours of live music from 2002 to 2007 (VanCour & Vallier, 2021). The bands on the recordings were Mudhoney, Everclear, Modest Mouse, Harvey Danger, and Death Cab for Cutie (VanCour & Vallier, 2021). Performers never gave informed consent of the recordings which leads to copyright and ethical issues of the collection (VanCour & Vallier, 2021). They created an ethically grounded access model by contacting stakeholders and user groups (VanCour & Vallier, 2021). This allowed them to take a portion of the recording and make them widely available to users (VanCour & Vallier, 2021). VanCour and Vallier concluded the importance of community collaboration on ethical management of a specific collection.

Opinion

This article does a great job at holding a conversation about ethical management within special collection. This ethically grounded access model helps replace the colonial model which was previously enforced in the institutions. VanCour and Vallier (2021) summaries colonial model as “researchers from settler nations traveling to record or extract ‘primitive’ sounds from ‘non-Western’ cultures; upon returning to their home institutions in Europe or North America, they then published their findings and deposited their field recordings into archives to be mined for further academic and financial gain.” The new model continues to work with the communities after the recordings were acquired. The institution does own the recordings and has copyright of the recording. However, it is vital to have community collaboration, with the communities who were recorded, about the level of accessibility certain materials may have in the collection. Collection management is broader than growing, maintaining, or shrinking a collection. There is an ethical element to special collections. Librarians and archivist must be aware of ethical implications when they are managing their collection.