Digitization of Uganda’s Musical Cultural Heritage: Lessons from the Digital Music Archive, Makerere University

2.  Makerere University is the oldest University in East
Africa-established 1922. It became a fully-fledged
Institution of Higher Learning and National University in
July1970.
 At the heart of the University is MakLib founded in 1940.
It is a legal depository library of Uganda and United
Nations materials.
 MakLib has 400,000 volumes of monographs and 82,000
volumes of bound serials.
 MakLib serves a population of approximately 40,000
users, consisting of about 3,911staff, 35,000 students
and external users.

3.  The Uganda Broadcasting Corporation
 The Uganda Museum (1908)-Field
recordings and musical instruments
 The Uganda Popular Music Archive Project
(2002)-Commercial recordings
 The Global Music Archive (2003)-
Traditional music

4.  Makerere University Digital Music Archive
is a multi-media archive for traditional,
popular and art music, recited word,
dances and stories and recollections of
musicians and dancers of Uganda.
 (http://musicarchive.mak.ac.ug)

6.  The archive fosters the educational and
cultural role of Makerere University through
the preservation and access to music and
oral traditions.

7.  Music scores, manuscripts and transcriptions
 Personal
stories and recollections of
musicians and dancers
 Legal music deposits
 Fieldrecordings (contains a huge collection
of Klaus Wachsmann and Peter Cooke)

10. Conception
By 2004, MakLib had made initial contacts with digitization
projects (under collaborative linkages with Tufts
University; the University of Tennessee and the
University of Bergen)
USDL is the first comprehensive digitization project at
MakLib
An interdisciplinary committee
 Noted that documentation of Uganda’s musical cultural
heritage was not accessible
 Envisaged an Archive for documenting, preserving and
disseminating Uganda’s traditional music to scholars and
other researchers
 Makerere University Digital Music Archive

11.  Library Management
 Ugandan Ethnomusicologist, researcher &
Associate professor at Makerere University
 Music Librarian
 Music Archivist
 Digitization Librarian
 Library Cataloguers
 Collectors-Ethnomusicologists
 DICTs

12.  NORAD
 The American Embassy in Uganda
 The Grieg Academy, University of Bergen
 The University of Bergen Library

13.  Makerere University & University of Bergen
 MakLib & University of Bergen Library
 The Grieg Academy & MDD
 The American Embassy
 The British Library Sound Archives

14.  2004: Library conceives idea
 2005: USDL project
 2006: USDL launched
 2006: Collaboration established
 2007: NORAD funding arrived
 2007: Partitioning of the Archive
 2008: Music Librarian travels to Norway
 2008: Software installation & pilot project
 2009: Digital Archive launched
 2010: Collecting of field recordings

15.  Reel-to-reel player
 Compact Cassette player
 Amplifier, sound card
 Turntable
 Apple computers
 Field recorder
 Scanner
 Printer
 Earphones

18.  Dspace
 Amadeus Pro
 Toast 11 Titanium
 iTunes

19.  Customization of default template in
Dspace
 Creating communities & sub communities
 MARC21 (Printed materials)
 Dublin core

20.  Is
the conversion of analogue records to a
universal computer readable language
Why digitize?
 Access Preservation
 Original media was fragile playback
equipment was scarce
 The original condition is threatened !

21.  Itis crucial that the process results in files
in the right format and right quality so they
can be reused and secured for the future!
 Eachrecording was converted to more than
one computer file
 Sampling rate (44.1 kHz)
 Sample size (16 bits stereo)

22.  Each photograph is scanned at archival quality
(8-bit gray scale with a jpeg reference image)
 Black & White photographs were scanned at 8-
bit
 Coloured pictures were scanned at 24-bit
 TIFF files are scanned from textual data

23. Internally accepted standards
Ensure that bits/bytes can be reused in
future
Audio
 .aiff (preservation) ; .mp3 (Access)
Sheet music
 .tiff (preservation) ; .jpeg (Access)
Video
 .avi (preservation) ; .mp4 (Access)

24. Preservation Access/
promotion
audio .aiff .mp3/ (Compressed file format)
.wma (Windows Media Audio)
Sheet music .tiff .jpg, gif (Tagged Image File Format) Joint
Photographic
(lossy compression for digital Experts
photography) Group
(Graphics Interchange Format)
lossless data compression
technique to reduce the file
size without degrading the
visual quality.
video .avi mov, mp4 (mp4-allows streaming over
the Internet).
(Audio Visual Interleave files
support multiple streaming
audio and video)
(mov- compressed multimedia
format often used for saving
movies and other video files)

25. Agroup of three ethnomusicologists-Four
major regions (North, East, Central and
West)
So far:
 835 items of audio recordings
 1100 items of video recording
 1000 photo items/objects

26.  All Library registered users
 External users pay library fees
 OPAC (Finding aid)
 Digital music repository
 Restricted access to some sound recordings
 Listening and viewing facilities
(workstations)

29.  Copyright is a complex issue that strongly
impacts the selection of materials for
digitization
 Technology has a short life cycle
(technology requirements)
 Human resource development
 Project Communication
 Teamwork & team building crucial
 Building partnerships & collaborations

30. Procurement planning is vital to avoid
unnecessary delays
The budgeting process should take
into consideration staff costs-
motivation

31.  Need for constant migration
 Create an online streaming repository
 Buildingpartnerships with cultural
heritage institutions
 Training & re-training staff

32.  Digitisation
provides visibility and access to this
unique collections and a historical context for the
appreciation and understanding of Ugandan
musical cultural heritage.
 Therefore there is need to continue the journey
on this revolutionary path towards preserving the
musical cultural heritage. Challenges should be
addressed and opportunities embraced in
preserving and promoting access to information.

34. Thank you