Writing (British) Concert History: The Blessing and Curse of Ephemera

Bashford, Christina

doi:10.1353/not.2008.0023

Cited by 10 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…5 Awareness of the importance of preserving ephemera has increased in recent decades, and these sources have become a focus of interest among researchers. Ephemera are primary sources for research on social history, serving as historical testimonies that reflect the experiences groups of particular interest or social movements that may have lasted only briefly (Bashford, 2008; Burant, 1995; Byerly, 2009; Cooper, 1987). According to Mussell (2012), ephemera can serve as a key to understanding the past precisely because these sources were not intended to be preserved.…”

Section: Selecting Ephemera For ‘Time Travel’mentioning

confidence: 99%

Interfacing with the past: Archival digitization and the construction of digital depository

Ringel

2020

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Med

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This article examines the construction of a digital collection. Using a theoretical framework adapted from digital history and historiography, it will investigate the implications of archival digitization. Through an empirical study of the National Library of Israel’s digital depository of ephemera entitled ‘Time Travel’, the article demonstrates how the selection of archival records for digital preservation, the design of the search interface, and the crowdsourcing of metadata collection are all directing archive users toward certain narratives about Israeli history and away from others. Drawing on interviews with professionals, analysis of reports, and investigations of user experience, I will unearth the political, religious, and cultural tensions that lie beneath the surface of ‘Time Travel’. This research demonstrates that digitization of archival documents is not just a technical process but a cultural, social, and political one as well.

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Section: Selecting Ephemera For ‘Time Travel’mentioning

confidence: 99%

Interfacing with the past: Archival digitization and the construction of digital depository

Ringel

2020

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Med

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“…Attention has shifted from the study of musical works as 'texts' to broader questions concerning the function of music in social and cultural life, and scholars have taken up a more bottom-up approach to music history involving socioeconomic aspects of concert life, patterns of taste, and local musical practices (e.g. Pasler, 1993;Johnson, 1995;Weber, 2001Weber, , 2009aWeber, , 2009bHall-Witt, 2007;Bashford, 2008). As a result, issues of performance and reception have assumed a prominent place in the field.…”

Section: Lexicons and Datasetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Operatic Productions in the Netherlands, 1886–1995: from Printed Annals to Searchable Performance Data

Nieuwkerk

Salters

Helmers

et al. 2020

Res. Data J Humanit. Soc. Sci.

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This data paper accompanies the database Operatic productions in the Netherlands, an open dataset containing details on over five thousand opera productions in the Netherlands between 1885 and 1995 extracted from the Annalen van de Nederlandse Opera-gezelschappen (Annals of the Opera Companies in the Netherlands), which appeared in book form in 1996. These data give an extremely rich account of the performance history of operatic works and the personnel involved in their production. Since the original publication lacks a critical introduction, the authors have attempted to reconstruct the origins and systematics of the collection. They also discuss the attributes of the data and the basic data structure in order to give users relevant information to use and restructure the data for their interests. The data structure and metadata classifications are based on an inventory of the classifications used in existing performing arts databases across Europe. This facilitates future connections to other relevant performing arts datasets. The transfer of the Annals into a relational database finally brings out their full research potential.

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“…Music historians have only just begun to discover the full research potential of the thousands of concert programs that are scattered across European archives and libraries (Weber, 2000;Lee, 2017;Ridgewell, 2010;Bashford, 2008;Lloyd, 2003). In various fields of music historical research concert programs have proven to be extremely useful to enhance our understanding of the historical musical practice.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, performance data is often a missing link in studies that pursue a bottom-up approach to music history: studies into socioeconomic aspects of concert life, networks, patterns of taste, local repertoires and the implications of changing musical ideas for local musical practices (e.g. Pasler, 1993;Johnson, 1995;Weber, 2001 and2009;Hall-Witt, 2007;Bashford, 2008;English, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Felix Meritis Concert Programs Database, 1832–1888: From Archival Ephemera to Searchable Performance Data

Nieuwkerk

Nijboer

Kisjes

2020

Res. Data J Humanit. Soc. Sci.

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The Felix Meritis Concert Programs Database 1832–1888 (fmcp Database) provides a full digitisation of the concert programs collection of the most long-standing Dutch concert hall in the nineteenth century: Felix Meritis. Formerly hidden in boxes with archival ephemera, the content of this collection is now unlocked by manually entering the program details into a searchable dataset. The programs give an extremely rich account of a local concert practice, the performed repertoire, and the musicians involved. However, archiving concert programs at item-level presents a challenge: due to inconsistencies in and incompleteness of work descriptions it is often hard to identify and categorize the musical works performed. For the fmcp database, the authors have developed a possible solution to this problem; a strategy for structuring and categorizing concert programming data that aims to include incomplete work descriptions and reflect genre categorizations used in local concert practice. In this paper, the authors will present this categorization method and discuss the attributes and the basic structure of the fmcp database.

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Writing (British) Concert History: The Blessing and Curse of Ephemera

Cited by 10 publications

References 32 publications

Interfacing with the past: Archival digitization and the construction of digital depository

Interfacing with the past: Archival digitization and the construction of digital depository

Operatic Productions in the Netherlands, 1886–1995: from Printed Annals to Searchable Performance Data

The Felix Meritis Concert Programs Database, 1832–1888: From Archival Ephemera to Searchable Performance Data

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