BLACKING COLLECTION PROJECT

Aim

To make the internationally recognised John Blacking Collection available to researchers by processing the collection to archival standards.

Background

In late 2006 work began on the essential and extensive task of archiving the collection to best practice standards.

While the material in the Blacking Collection focuses largely on Blacking’s ethnomusicological fieldwork in Vendaland, South Africa in the late 1950s, it has further significance as a representation of the man as a whole. Blacking was involved in a wide range of professional, academic and civic activities. He was acutely observant and deeply analytical, and he documented his observations and thoughts with meticulous detail.

Activities

To make the collection ready for researchers, staff concentrated on five key activities:

• Unpacking and storing the collection in a stable environment

• Creating a Finding Aid

• Organising the collection

• Packaging the collection, including some preventative preservation

• Shelving the collection on appropriate shelving in a climate-controlled, pest-free environment

Project Outcomes

In March 1997 the Blacking Collection arrived in Perth in 16 removal cartons. Since that time, the cartons have been handled by staff, researchers and technicians. In June 2006 the collection was packed into 26 cardboard cartons and moved from Clifton Street to a room in the Callaway Centre’s current home in the Park Avenue Building.

Based on comparisons between the materials actually present and earlier administrative documents, it appears that much of the original order of the collection had been compromised across time.

In February 2007, the collection was moved into the Callaway Centre Archive’s climate-controlled environment. Additional materials had been recovered from other locations, and by April 2007 32 boxes of material had been unpacked and listed. The resulting 214 page document contained details of the date of unpacking, the people involved, the condition of the material as it was found, and details of the contents.

Considerable time was spent designing a suitable methodology that would allow the collection to be described in a manner compatible with the Archive’s recently developed catalogue. This included a determination of the use of the Series Registration System in preference to the Accession System, establishing bibliographic specifications to accommodate a hierarchical structure (for series, file and item entries), establishing an accession number structure, and researching the style to be used for complementary finding aids and collection guides.

In April 2007, work commenced on the task of devising a methodology for organising the collection. This was particularly complex due to the sophisticated organisation structure inherent in such a large academic collection where items may be linked intellectually but separated physically and chronologically. In addition, there was evidence of organisational systems such as indexing and cross-referencing, but no documentation of the system or a clearly defined master index to it.

During April and May 2007 concepts were established for identifying series in the non-print material, such as photographs/slides, film and sound recordings. However, the print material – the published and unpublished lectures and the various drafts and notes associated with these; random research; miscellaneous writings; personal papers; etc – was much more complex.

A major breakthrough occurred when it was decided that one of the best ways of making sense of the collection was to understand the various “roles” assumed by Blacking throughout his lifetime. As a result, processing of the collection commenced in June, and by October a structure of 22 series headings had been established with all materials co-located into appropriate groupings. Archival packaging solutions for the various formats of material were researched and acquired.

A Cataloguing Technical Specifications document was created to facilitate the cataloguing of the collection to the Archive’s online catalogue. The project was interrupted in May 2008 by the commencement of the ARC-funded Communicative Human Musicality Project.

Acknowledgement

Winthrop Professor Jane Davidson, Callaway/Tunley Chair of Music at the School of Music, has been instrumental in funding this Project.