Kempleel blog 10: The E. Azalia Hackley Collection

The E. Azalia Hackley Collection consists of more than 600 pieces of sheet music published between 1799and 1922, in the collection of the Detroit Public Library. What makes the collection unique is that it was one of the first in the country to specifically archive the contributions of African American musicians to the preforming arts.

Collection Principles: The digital collection was began in 2003, and is the result of an Ameritech Foundation grant. The Hackley collection has been in the library's possession for years, and was chosen because of it's unique historical significance. Initially they scanned only music before 1900, as it was in the public domain, but later the decision was to add music published through 1922. Future copyright status change may enable them to add additional twentieth century works. Further information about all aspects of the project can be found on the "Project Info" page.

Object Characteristics: Uses Greenstone, so this project has a very familiar interface. You can search the entire collection or go directly to those parts of it known to be by African American composers or those sheets published in Detroit. You can also browse the entire collection by titles, lyrics, composers, contributors, subjects and dates. Objects consist of high resolution color jpeg scans of entire music pamphlets, sheets of books, but do not come in more than one size. The scans open in a separate tab or window and preserve not only the music, but also it's attendant packaging, art work, and even advertisements. Also included on the site are a handful of audio files for some of the music, but they are sadly in annoying and outdated midi format.

Metadata: Yay, good metadata! Extensive metadata is provided, including dates, places, authors and publishers, some or all of the lyrics, a detailed description of the physical object, and both it's digital and OCLC catalogue ID numbers.

Intended Audience: Music lovers and historians, students of history and sociology, the general public and lovers of the obscure!