DIAMM: Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music

Almost all research relies on access to primary source material, and the quality of that research is dependent the quality of access to the source materials, which depends in turn on the flexibility and power of the search tools available. It is the primary goal of DIAMM to provide the best possible access to valuable, fragile and rare documents for a worldwide community of users, from scholars and performers to the general interested members of public. In some cases DIAMM provides users with better access than that which they could obtain by direct examination of the original source. High-quality digital images offer radically improved opportunities for close and comparative manuscript study, and have facilitated a level of detailed discovery by using magnificiation beyond that achievable with the naked eye.

Since the inception of the project in 1998, this goal has been met and exceeded by adding to the foundation image archive a rich metadata environment in which the manuscript images are placed, and by the development of a sophisticated online environment to deliver the images, without charge, to end users. By 2006 the original collection of some 368 manuscript sources (approx. 7500 images) was being accessed repeatedly by 412 registered users. The website is currently a portal to detailed catalogue listings for 3127 manuscript sources (many recently discovered, and some described uniquely here), and provides access to nearly 15,000 images, although these images comprise only 15% of the sources listed. Web statistics show very active usage of the website (http://www.diamm.ac.uk/awstats/awstats) with over 2000 currently registered users and an average of over 7000 hits per day to the website, many of those from repeat users. This level of activity already exists despite the fact that full searchability of the sources and inventory information is not yet available.

This resource depends on an intricate database of information that is currently being made available for complex searching and the creation of customizable lists or saved searches, together with the best possible online delivery of our archive-quality images by the Centre for Computing in the Humanities (CCH) based at King's College, London. However, the data available to users depends on creation of new content and the establishment of complex linkages between sources and works that is undertaken by the project team. The original catalogue information for many manuscripts was created over half a century ago. New descriptions need to be written for manuscripts where more recent research has uncovered new or more accurate information. This must be done by researchers with a significant research background in this field, with a level of expertise suitable for the accurate creation of this type of information.

Although new images are constantly added to the archive thanks to individual research projects that commission DIAMM to undertake photography on their behalf, these projects do not necessarily allow the collection to maintain a cohesive coverage of the entire repertory: signal lacunae exist. The current project will provide images for some of the more important of these missing sources. A camera upgrade will enable the project to use single-shot technology for sources that are of a size that currently requires use of slow scanning-back imaging, thus increasing throughput from c.80 images/day to c.400 images/day, making many projects practically feasible for the first time.

The application also seeks to provide the project with a project manager/researcher and clerical assistants for a year, during which time the database content can continue to be enhanced, expanded and updated, and photography of several important sources can be undertaken.

The web resource, presently an excellent and widely-used research resource, would be very considerably enhanced by providing users with tools that extend the boundaries of what is possible simply by delivering an online version of the two catalogues, RISM and CCM. This is currently the focus of development work on the website front end which will allow a new level of searchability and customization of content to suit the needs of all users, whatever their level of interest or expertise.

Apart from the academic community, the resource is used by, and benefits, the following worldwide communities:

1. Performers. The performance of early music increasingly creates a demand for access to original sources rather than to editions that merely reflect the decisions and ideas of a single editor. As performers become more critical of their traditional dependence on transcriptions by others and seek to extend their repertory, they need access to primary source material. This access is provided by DIAMM. When joined by information on how to transcribe from early notations, the resource will have a much wider effectiveness. Collaborations with a number of ensembles are already established.

2. Medieval enthusiasts. Only a few other resources are able to offer free access to medieval sources at such high quality, and of such diversity of date, provenance and context. Not only have medievalists worldwide come to use the resource as a teaching aid, but members of the general public are also regular visitors.

3. Collections/Libraries/Archives Institutions are thus also major users of the resource. The images and the metadata increase exposure for their collections and supports them as institutions by providing access to their collections without cost to them. This is particularly important for small archives with limited resources for creating an online presence, but has also been taken up by much larger institutions.

4. Schools. A crucial user group is children of primary- and secondary-school age and their teachers. Projects on medieval life, general history and music have been enriched by direct visual access to the documents the children are studying. This in turn creates an interest in medieval studies that is carried through from primary to secondary education, and from there into tertiary studies. This feed-through should serve to arrest the recent 'presentist' trend in chronological focus in HE music courses. The cost and simple practical difficulty of accessing these rare and increasingly delicate documents has in the past prevented young scholars from engaging with them: departments were beginning to consider that teaching about music of this period to be impractical. Increasing interest in the period is now being generated by DIAMM, and the ease of access to documents and to information about them it provides is reversing this trend.

5. Technical consultancy and imaging for other projects which themselves have a non-academic impact. As well as providing a research resource, DIAMM offers imaging consultancy for specialist imaging needs outside academia and the website serves as a model for various aspects of technical delivery. DIAMM is able to deliver content for other projects, both musical and non-musical. In the iteration of the website under development, it will deliver images for the Lancelot Graal project at the University of Pittsburgh, and may also create online access to images from the music collection at Christ Church, Oxford, the Bangor Pontifical and the Winchester Bible (all the subject of imaging initiatives in collaboration with DIAMM).