Unlocking Music Archives: Openness and Accessibility

This paper focuses on the theme of unlocking the materials preserved by musical institutions such as opera houses, conservatories, and historical archives. In this context, “unlocking” means providing access to anyone, which can be interpreted in two different ways. The first meaning, related to openness, implies making preserved materials accessible to a wide audience. From this perspective, digitization campaigns and the subsequent enhancement of cultural assets through technology can open the way to new possibilities. For example, creating a dedicated Web portal can facilitate access by addressing issues such as physical distances, availability at any time of the day, the perishability of physical objects, insurance costs, etc. Moreover, technology can provide new services and foster advanced ways to exploit materials. Concerning the second meaning, related to accessibility, technologies can be used to assist people with physical and cognitive impairments and extend the use of these materials to people for whom it would be more difficult. For example, assistive technologies, such as screen readers or braille displays, allow blind and visually impaired (BVI) users to enjoy the transcription of music or literary texts. Similarly, computer-assisted approaches, such as large language models, can reduce the complexity of a text to meet the communicative abilities of people with special educational needs or cognitive impairments. To better illustrate the meanings of openness and accessibility, we will discuss two scenarios excerpted from the Ricordi Historical Archive. On the one hand, this work aims to highlight the fundamental role of technologies in supporting openness and accessibility, starting from digitization campaigns, through the online publishing of materials, to the release of ad hoc software tools. On the other hand, our research shows that there is still a long way to go before music archives can fully achieve the goals of openness and accessibility.