The Archives of Traditional Music: Infinite stories, told and untold

Heather Sloan, DMA, MLS, Public Services and Outreach Archivist, Archives of Traditional Music (ATM)

As with other collections that are jewels in IU Libraries’ crown, awareness of the Archives of Traditional Music (ATM) can be surprisingly spotty. An archive of international renown, it is nonetheless fairly common upon mentioning the ATM, its contents, and its presence right here on campus, to receive a response along the lines of, “Oh, wow, really? That’s amazing! I had no idea.” 

We could attribute such a response to a PR issue, or perhaps to the “silo” effect that can occur on large campuses, and those may indeed come into play. However, I think the main contributing factor is much more stimulating, enticing, and downright fun: IU has an embarrassment of riches, a smorgasbord of fantastic collections—think, the Lilly Library, the Archives of African American Music and Culture (AAAMC), the many subject-specific special collections at Wells Library, the Eskenazi Museum, the Latin American Music Center (LAMC), the Bernstein Collection at the Cook Music Library, the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (IUMAA), just to name a few. “So many collections, so little time” is ultimately a good problem to have, and every day I feel fortunate that the ATM is in such excellent company.

The life of an archive: what shapes collecting?

With a field like archiving, focused as it is on categorization, data organization, and the like, it is easy to assume that the history of any given archive has unfolded in an organized, well-documented, and even linear fashion. Yet for many archives, the ATM among them, there is much more serendipity involved. The personalities of individual directors, along with their areas of interest; the collection donors and theirs; the funding streams; philosophical and thought trends in society and/or scholarship; and even institutional and personal rivalries have come into play in the continuing saga that is the ATM.

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If you are a collector of anything, however informally, think about what may have influenced your own collecting: 

• perhaps your collection became more grand as you went from spending a humble allowance to having more income;
• or conversely, maybe you sold off part of your collection during a lean period (if so, how did you choose what would stay and what would go?);
• you spent time in another state, country, or part of the world, and that exposure changed what you collect;
• or, conversely, you have remained in the same area for a long time and now, thanks to your collection, you are an expert on some aspect of that place;
• you discovered a new artist/band/maker-of-things-you-collect and it redirected your interest;
• or, conversely, you have collected the same thing over the years because you adore it and you keep finding new reasons to love it as you grow with it.

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Stories in and of the ATM

Like any longstanding institution worth its salt, the history of the ATM is full of compelling stories, from the heroic (materials valiantly rescued) to the tragic (unsalvageable materials lost to time) to the hilarious and everything in between. As a newcomer to the archive, I have delighted in learning these stories, bit by bit, not just from predecessors but from collection donors, current and former ATM graduate assistants, and scholars and ATM patrons the world over. When accepting a new role, it is not always comfortable to reliably be the person who knows the least about an operation, but on the other hand it can be a zesty challenge that is highly entertaining.

ATM Fast Facts

• Founded in 1948
• Long-standing partnerships with the Folklore & Ethnomusicology, Anthropology, and Linguistics Departments as well as the Jacobs School of Music
• ATM physical holdings represent many strange and wondrous audio & visual formats, including but not limited to:
  • Early wax cylinders and wire recordings, both invented in the late 1800s and popular through the early 20th century 
  • Aluminum, shellac, and vinyl discs
  • Audio cassettes and reel-to-reel tapes
  • Video formats of assorted vintages, including VHS tapes and “mini-DV”s
• All told, the ATM’s audio-visual holdings represent over 250,000 hours of recorded sound
• In addition to music from all over the world, the ATM contains one-of-a-kind storytelling and language recordings
• One of the most frequent uses of ATM materials these days is in language-revitalization initiatives, especially among Indigenous nations, tribes, and bands in the US and elsewhere
• Though smaller in number, the ATM also houses manuscripts, field notes, photographs, art objects, musical instruments, and ephemera, such as Hoagy Carmichael’s Oscar statue (on display in the ATM Reading Room—you can even pose next to it!).

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Archives of Traditional Music origin story or, A Tale of Two Georges

Founder George Herzog joined Indiana University’s Anthropology Department and launched the ATM in 1948. Hungarian-born Herzog had studied under some of the most prominent European and American anthropologists and ethnomusicologists of the early 20th century, including Erich von Hornbostel who, among other things, co-developed with Curt Sachs an instrument classification system still in use today, and Franz Boas, a towering figure in American anthropology and ethnomusicology famous both for his prodigious scholarly research, notably with Indigenous communities of the Pacific Northwest, and for his influence in shaping the theoretical underpinnings of his field. Arriving at IU from Columbia University, Herzog brought with him a collection of wax cylinders, approximately 10,000 in number. Those cylinders served as the “seed collection” of the ATM.

Having already worked some years with Herzog and the ATM collections, in 1953 George List accepted the role of ATM Director. List was a mid-career professional who had worked as an educator, conductor, and composer prior to assuming directorship of the ATM. Both Herzog and List recognized the importance of consistent archival practices to ATM collections, for preservation, discoverability, and access. List traveled to other, more established audio-visual archives to learn about and observe contemporary archiving systems, and many of the strategies and techniques he adopted are still in use at the ATM today.

The ATM: tech forward, since forever

I like to think about how the oldest audio media formats in the ATM—especially wax cylinders and recordings on wire—were really cutting edge for their day. The medium often has such a profound influence on what is recorded and why. For example, how would the content on wax cylinders be different if said cylinders could hold 60 minutes, rather than their actual two- to four-minute maximum capacity? What might we have and know that we do not? With only a few minutes at a time for audio capture, how did people prioritize? Conversely, how does today’s practically endless recording capacity influence our content? What happens when prioritizing is often optional?

Bringing the sounds of the past into the future

With the launch of the campus-wide Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative (MDPI) in 2015, the bulk of the ATM’s holdings were digitized, along with materials from many other units on campus. Former Director Alan Burdette and former Associate Director Mike Casey were the primary drivers of this ambitious initiative, the methods of which have been studied and imitated internationally. Through MDPI, the content of most ATM materials, from fragile wax cylinders to lacquer discs to reel-to-reel tapes, has been preserved as high-quality digital files. As the physical formats inevitably degrade over time, the files, of which there are multiple copies in multiple geographical locations, will allow users to continue to explore their content, much of it unique, found nowhere else in the world. Another advantage of the digitization process is that present-day patrons now have the option of accessing many ATM recordings from anywhere in the world through the Media Collections Online streaming platform. Music Library Director Phil Ponella, with a professional background that interweaves music, technology, and librarianship, oversees the ATM and is committed not only to ensuring that ATM content remains available as new technologies emerge, but also to increasing access to content across an ever-wider range of constituencies.

Over the years, each director, librarian, archivist, staff member, and even physical location on campus has influenced the growth and direction of the ATM. More specifics on the history of the Archives can be found here (sections of the preceding few paragraphs have been paraphrased from that page). 

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What story could you tell?

One of the things I love most about the ATM is that it is people-centered and connection-focused. Thousands of individuals and groups from many parts of the globe are represented in recordings at the ATM. Thousands of community members, scholars, and students have sought out their songs and stories, sometimes reconnecting with their own past, often asking new questions and developing new lines of inquiry in imaginative ways. And though the ATM does have long and cherished partnerships with a number of departments on campus, it is difficult to nail down a “typical” ATM user. Here on campus, we host instruction sessions for a wide variety of departments and help students formulate and complete projects in which they work directly with ATM recordings. Our student staff is currently working on such varied collections as women’s protest songs from Iran; George Herzog’s manuscripts and papers; episodes of an LA-based 1980s radio show focused on R & B and funk, featuring live interviews with mega-stars like Prince; Bloomington- and Indiana-based folk musicians from the 1960s onward; some of the first-ever recordings of music in China; and Afro-Brazilian recordings made by Lorenzo Dow Turner, a highly influential scholar of languages and music from Africa and the African diaspora.

I’m intrigued! What next?

Call us, send us an email, or better yet, just come on down! You do not need to be affiliated with IU to do so, and you do not have to have a project in mind: curiosity is all that is required. Our staff can give you tips on searching our holdings, listening via the streaming platform, and connecting with what inspires you.

Archives of Traditional Music, Simon Music Library & Recital Center, 200 S Eagleson Ave #260A, Bloomington, IN 47405, (812) 855-4679, atmusic@iu.edu

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Heather Sloan has a Doctorate in Percussion Performance from SUNY Stony Brook and a Master’s in Library Science, Specialization in Digital Humanities, from Indiana University. Her research areas include folkloric music of the Dominican Republic; “exotic” lounge music of the mid-20th century; and intersections between visual art and music, especially in the Western avant-garde. She has worked at IU Bloomington since 2017, including roles in the Media Services and Government Documents (maps collection) Departments at Wells Library. Since July 2024, she has served as the Public Services and Outreach Archivist for the Archives of Traditional Music.

This blog post is part of an ongoing series drawing attention to library collections related to marginalized or underrepresented populations, communities, and individuals.