Enabling FAIR use of Ethnomusicology Data – Through Distributed Repositories, Linked Data and Music Information Retrieval

Abstract

Recordings of musical practices are kept in various public institutions and private depositories around the world. They constitute valuable data for ethnomusicological research and are substantial for the world's musical heritage. At the moment, there are no commonly used systems and standards for organizing, describing or categorizing these data, which makes their use difficult. In this paper, we discuss the required steps to make them findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR), and outline action items to reach these goals. We show solutions that help researchers to manage their data over the whole research lifecycle and discuss the benefits of combining technologies from information science, music information retrieval, and linked data, with the aim of giving incentives for the ethnomusicology research community to actively participate in these developments in the future.

FAIR for whom? Commentary on Hofmann et al. (2021)

“…THE fact that the study of "all the musics of the world in their various social and cultural contexts" (Hofmann et al, 2021) still requires a separate label in 2021 should at least give pause for thought. About 130 years after the first steps of the discipline and its forerunners, there is still the necessity to speak of ethnomusicology instead just of musicology when it comes to music outside of European or American traditional lines.…”