Community Archiving of Native American Music: Best Practices for Institutional Facilitation

FAIN: PW-234685-16

University of Oklahoma, Norman (Norman, OK 73019-3003)
Daniel C. Swan (Project Director: July 2015 to June 2019)
Joshua Nelson (Co Project Director: March 2016 to June 2019)
Amanda Gail Minks (Co Project Director: March 2016 to June 2019)

A planning project to develop, in consultation with Native American communities, protocols for best practices for preserving and digitizing audio and audiovisual recordings of Native American music held in various community archives and at the Sam Noble Museum at the University of Oklahoma.

This project will consult with Native communities to ascertain the desirability and logistics of a large-scale digitization and preservation program for Native American music recordings in Oklahoma. The immediate goal of the project is to develop a series of protocols for best practices in ethically facilitating the preservation and digitization of music recordings primarily held by Native communities and their members. We also propose to expand and enhance policies regarding audio and audiovisual recordings in the museum's Native American Languages Collection. The duration of the project is two years. The first year we will focus on community outreach and engagement as well as our campus-based and external advisors. The second year we will expand and follow up on our community meetings, develop protocols, and solicit feedback from our advisors as well as from community leaders and members. The final product will be a set of recommendations for program implementation.