Collecting and preserving access to Intangible Cultural Heritage within the digital environment: Evaluating new models for Scotland

Sound is a valuable form of Intangible Cultural Heritage that encompasses music, song, oral histories, soundscapes or spoken word recordings. Such collections play a key role in sustaining community identities, through preserving history, culture and knowledge that is inaccessible through material culture alone. Scotland's public institutions are increasingly engaged in the question of how to collect and provide access to ICH.

Digital platforms create an environment that offers significant opportunities, as well as challenges, in the documentation of ICH sound, both in terms of preserving and providing access to existing material currently held in public institutions, but also as tools for collecting sound material held or created by the public. This research will critically examine issues surrounding digital preservation and access to ICH in Scotland, through the case study of Scotland's Sounds. The project will examine how Scotland's Sounds can ensure the sustainability of ICH sound collections.