Local Music Collectors in Cultural Heritage Organizations: Finding Joy through Occupational Devotion

Abstract:Local music collecting in cultural heritage organizations is a rich practice for the study of joy and information. This article examines the joyful and personally meaningful experiences of local music collectors, as drawn from interviews with twenty-two individuals at eighteen cultural heritage organizations conducted from 2018 to 2020. Collectors describe their work with local music collections to be personally meaningful, positive, and even joyful. For many, the positive affective experiences found through the blending of personal interests and professional projects is a key factor in their workplace well-being, motivation, and personal fulfillment. Collectors apply a community-engaged approach to their professional practice, finding self-fulfillment through their work and connection to the local music community. These findings are discussed within the context of the serious leisure perspective, and the pleasurable and the profound in library and information science research.

[1]  Tim Obermiller,et al.  Art Worlds: , 2021, The National Frame.

[2]  Lauren Istvandity.  How does music heritage get lost? Examining cultural heritage loss in community and authorised music archives , 2020 .

[3]  Tim Gorichanaz,et al.  Information and contemplation: a call for reflection and action , 2020, J. Documentation.

[4]  Tim Gorichanaz,et al.  Information experience in personally meaningful activities , 2019, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[5]  Sean Luyk,et al.  Sounds of Home: A Survey of Local Music Collection Management Practices in Canadian Libraries , 2019, CAML Review / Revue de l ACBM.

[6]  Evangelos Chrysagis.  DIY Cultures and Underground Music Scenes , 2018, Popular Music and Society.

[7]  Sarah Baker.  Community Custodians of Popular Music's Past: A DIY Approach to Heritage , 2017 .

[8]  Tuire Kuusi,et al.  Double Life: Music as Work and Serious Leisure , 2017 .

[9]  Sarah Baker,et al.  A labour of love: the affective archives of popular music culture , 2017 .

[10]  A. Flinn.  Preserving popular music heritage: do-it-yourself, do-it-together , 2017 .

[11]  Ian Ruthven,et al.  Sharing “happy” information , 2016, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[12]  J. Doll,et al.  Careers in serious leisure: from dabbler to devotee in search of fulfillment , 2016 .

[13]  Marika Cifor.  Affecting relations: introducing affect theory to archival discourse , 2016 .

[14]  Shane Homan,et al.  Historical Records, National Constructions: The Contemporary Popular Music Archive , 2016, Popular Music, Cultural Memory, and Heritage.

[15]  Caroline Daniels,et al.  Saving All the Freaks on the Life Raft: Blending Documentation Strategy with Community Engagement to Build a Local Music Archives , 2015 .

[16]  Sarah Baker,et al.  Sustaining popular music’s material culture in community archives and museums , 2015 .

[17]  Carolyn Doi,et al.  Local Music Collections: Strategies for Digital Access, Presentation, and Preservation—A Case Study , 2015 .

[18]  Lyn Robinson,et al.  Information behaviour of music record collectors , 2014, Inf. Res..

[19]  S. Henderson,et al.  From serious leisure to serious work, or, when folk music struck a chord: careers, Habermasian rationality and agency , 2014 .

[20]  Jenna Hartel,et al.  An interdisciplinary platform for information behavior research in the liberal arts hobby , 2014, J. Documentation.

[21]  Jeffery C. Wanser.  Collecting and Collaborating to Build Community: The Evolution of a Local Music Collection at a Small Liberal Arts College Library , 2014 .

[22]  Abigail Wood.  Local Music Scenes and Globalization: Transnational Platforms in Beirut , 2014 .

[23]  B. Smale,et al.  Celebrating, challenging and re-envisioning serious leisure , 2013 .

[24]  T. Krzyżanowski.  Making Noise: Toronto Public Library's Local Music Project , 2013 .

[25]  Sean Luyk.  Scene but Not Heard: Collecting Local Music , 2013 .

[26]  Kiersten F. Latham,et al.  Numinous Experiences With Museum Objects , 2013 .

[27]  Priscilla winling.  Bringing the Local Music Scene to the Public Libraries Network of Strasbourg: A Live Collection , 2012 .

[28]  R. Peterson,et al.  Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual , 2011 .

[29]  Andrew M. Cox,et al.  Information and food blogging as serious leisure , 2011, Aslib Proc..

[30]  H. Kruse.  Local Identity and Independent Music Scenes, Online and Off , 2010 .

[31]  John Vallier.  Sound Archiving Close to Home: Why Community Partnerships Matter , 2010 .

[32]  Robert A. Stebbins,et al.  Leisure and Its Relationship to Library and: Information Science: Bridging the Gap , 2009, Libr. Trends.

[33]  Donald Owen Case,et al.  Serial Collecting as Leisure, and Coin Collecting in Particular , 2009, Libr. Trends.

[34]  D. Giles,et al.  The psychological meaning of personal record collections and the impact of changing technological forms , 2007 .

[35]  Jarkko Kari,et al.  Information and higher things in life: Addressing the pleasurable and the profound in information science , 2007, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[36]  Marion Leonard.  Constructing histories through material culture: Popular Music, Museums and Collecting , 2007 .

[37]  R. Belford.  Building a Regional Music Collection: the Saskatchewan Experience , 2007 .

[38]  Elena Prigoda,et al.  Purls of wisdom: A collectivist study of human information behaviour in a public library knitting group , 2007, J. Documentation.

[39]  Marilyn Domas White,et al.  Content Analysis: A Flexible Methodology , 2006, Libr. Trends.

[40]  Katie Milestone.  Sound Tracks: Popular Music, Identity and Place , 2005 .

[41]  Kimmo Tuominen,et al.  "Isms" in information science: constructivism, collectivism and constructionism , 2005, J. Documentation.

[42]  Sean Ebare.  Site and Sound: Understanding Independent Music Scenes , 2004 .

[43]  Roy Shuker.  Beyond the ‘high fidelity’ stereotype: defining the (contemporary) record collector , 2004, Popular Music.

[44]  J. Street,et al.  The ‘local’ and ‘global’ in popular music , 2001 .

[45]  John B. Gatewood,et al.  Excursions into the Un-Remembered Past: What People Want from Visits to Historical Sites , 2000 .

[46]  Marcia J. Bates,et al.  The Invisible Substrate of Information Science , 1999, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..

[47]  P. Pini,et al.  A labour of love , 1997, The Lancet.

[48]  Will Straw,et al.  Systems of articulation, logics of change: Communities and scenes in popular music , 1991 .

[49]  Edward W. Hathaway.  Developing a State Archive of Local Music Materials , 1989 .

[50]  D. Epstein.  On Collecting Materials for Local Music Histories , 1967 .

[51]  Harold Spivacke.  The Collection of Musical Material of Local Interest , 1940 .

[52]  Tim Gorichanaz,et al.  Contemplative aims for information , 2019, Inf. Res..

[53]  Sarah Baker,et al.  Remembering Popular Musics Past Memory-Heritage-History , 2019 .

[54]  Alejandro Vesga Vinchira,et al.  Modelling the information practices of music fans living in Medellín, Colombia , 2019, Inf. Res..

[55]  Sarah Baker.  The Routledge Companion to Popular Music History and Heritage , 2018 .

[56]  L. Allen.  Preserving a nation's heritage : The gallo music archive and south African popular music , 2007 .

[57]  Ian Biddle,et al.  Music, national identity and the politics of location : between the global and the local , 2006 .

[58]  J. Hartel,et al.  The Serious Leisure Frontier in Library and Informtion Science: Hobby Domains , 2003 .

[59]  J. Guilbault.  On redefining the «Local» through world music , 1993 .

[60]  T. Oko.  Interviewing as Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences. , 1992 .