Digitisation Project 2013-2015
Background
Funded through a grant from the Federal Government Department of Education and Training, the AMC's 2013-2015 digitisation project set a goal of completing the digitisation of a major part of the AMC's library collection of scores and audio, as well as the AMC's publications and photo archive.
The project makes available an extensive range of Australian music resources for study and performance. While the project has now been officially completed, you will continue to see new materials being progressively added over the coming months, as digital files are checked, and cataloguing completed.
> Read AMC's CEO John Davis's report about the completion of this project on the AMC's web magazine Resonate
> Read project coordinator Chris Williams's article about the challenges our digitising team met and the tools they developed to complete the task.
AMC Digitisation Project
- additions in 2013-2015
• 12,508 scores and sets of performance parts scanned/digitised (including 5,425 Digital Production Master files)
• 508 images and photographs digitised
• 1,084 audio files digitised
• 6 other archival publications digitised
AMC's publications
now available as ebooks
Thanks to this project, we have been able to digitise several AMC publications, some of them long out of print. To celebrate our achievement, we've made Andrew Ford's 1991 education resource Inventing Music available as a free download. Soon to follow are ebooks of the three out-of-print Composer Speaks books (1991-1998), as well as the 1998 publication Australia - Exploring the musical landscape. We've selected these publications for reissue because of the continuing relevance of their content in the contemporary context.
AMC's Digital Score Library
AMCs Digital Score Library now includes over 9,200 scores. This means that the AMC's customers and members, including performing musicians and pedagogues all over the world, are able to access all this music as digital library loans. Watch this video for a quick demonstration (open the video in a separate window).
For an individual library user, access to digital loans means there is no need to resort to unreliable postal services, or to be restricted by office hours in a different time zone. Simply login and view the score at your leisure. All that is needed is a current AMC membership, which enables you to access 30 digital scores per month (50 scores for school members). Become a member now.
AMC Online
- facts & figures (20 April 2015)
• 9,262 scores available for digital library loan
• 7,086 audio samples available for listening
• 7,742 sheet music score samples available
• 12,932 music scores available for sale
• 3,527 recordings available for sale (CD or MP3 download)
More archival publications, photographs, music scores, and audio files will become available online as digitised materials are checked for compliance with our file specifications.
Next steps -
you can help!
Our major collection of Australian music is a continually evolving and growing one. Next steps in taking care of this treasure include further digitising and documenting the works, and promoting them as well as promoting the creative artists themselves. You can support this important work by making a donation.
AMC's Digital Photo Archive
Thanks to the completion of the digitisation project, AMC's composer image archives have now been fully digitised. Further work remains to be done in dating and documenting the photos. To have this valuable archive now safely stored in a digital format is a big first step in documenting the visual history of Australian composers and sound artists.
Watch a slideshow of some selected highlights from the AMC's photo archive.
AMC's Digital Audio Archive
Thanks to this project, most CDs in the AMC's collection, many of them concert recordings and unique sound files not commercially available, have been stored and backed up. 1,084 new audio files have been added to the collection as part of this project.
Throughout the AMC website, visitors are able to listen to short sound samples of works in the AMC's collection. 7,086 audio samples are currently available for listening.
This project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Education and Training.