Acquisition of Popular Music in Popular Culture Archives

by Knight, Katie

This study explores the attitudes and approaches of three different popular music archivists to acquire popular music recordings for their collection. Each of these archivists is employed at a major established academic popular culture archives in the United States. A survey was conducted to understand how these archivists characterize popular music and in what ways their collections are evolving. The study found that all archivists’ notions of popular music is generally broad, one that encompasses nearly every genre that appeals to the general population, and one that will inevitably change over time. Donations are the primary method of collection. Archivists then refine the collection based on institutional philosophy and scope, academic curricula, and the collections of their colleagues.