National Library of Australia - Gateways>

ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 55 | February 2002


Musica a Firenze: Web Delivery of Music

Such possibilities are moving closer to reality. The Internet is opening up exciting new opportunities for access to music integrating music 'objects' in various formats with relevant documentation. Extensive research is taking place worldwide to facilitate these processes of storage, management, web delivery and information retrieval of music, allowing users to be more interactive with musical materials on the Internet. The potential application of such technologies by libraries and other cultural institutions wishing to make more accessible the musical heritage of a nation presents exciting future pathways.

The National Library of Australia and ScreenSound Australia, with other key agencies such as the Australian Music Centre, State libraries and some universities, are working together to develop strategies for collecting, preserving and delivering music and music-related resources digitally. The contemporary music industry is working with the Australia Council to generate more digital music content, aiming to increase the web presence for Australian music. The Library, with some State libraries, has begun digitising its historical Australian sheet music collections. Most significantly, the Library has started a joint pilot with ScreenSound to test the mechanisms for delivering sound and score across institutions. The first samples of this pilot work should be available on the Internet by June 2002 and will mark the first phase of development towards a major new national service for music, MusicAustralia. More news on this soon.

To assist such developments, the Curator of Music, Robyn Holmes, recently attended the first International Conference on Web Delivery of Music held in Florence. The conference brought together the research results of major international research projects from Europe and North America, addressing many aspects of the complex technical demands and rights management issues, as well as user needs and interests. Research findings were presented on web music editing, recognition and querying, music watermarking and content protection, music modelling and web distribution, musical analysis and classification, audio delivery and manipulation, and applications for preserving, delivering and accessing musical heritage in a web environment. In Milan, Robyn also met with the chair of the IT working group of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres, Dr Massimo Gentili-Tedeschi, to investigate the latest technical standards applied to music information. Robyn also visited the British Library where various participants in the major collaborative music initiatives in Britain gathered for a day of information exchange.

The Library has developed a register of international projects in music web delivery in order to keep abreast of the latest developments. In this context, the recent visit to the Library by Dr Timothy Maloney, Head of Music and Reference at the National Library of Canada, also enabled sharing of information on Canadian sheet music and audio digitisation projects. The Canadian projects are accessible on the National Library of Canada's web site www.nlc-bnc.ca/4/index-e.html The way ahead is exciting. In turning our attention to the challenges music poses, the Library is further addressing mechanisms for delivering a range of complex formats and services, following the implementation of Picture Australia. These services not only have interest to a wide range of users but also represent potentially key new applications and technical ways forward for the libraries in future information exchange, resource sharing and user access in a web-based world.
—Robyn Holmes

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Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: dthomas@nla.gov.au

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