Digital Repository of Ukrainian Musical Folklore: Prerequisites for Creation, Ways of implementing the Concept, General Features of the Structure

Abstract

A significant risk that we might lose especially valuable funds of Ukrainian musical folklore under conditions of Russian military aggression and, at the same time, the outstanding interest of Ukrainian society in its own national cultural heritage call for rethinking approaches to archival storage, post-processing and dissemination of folklore field research materials stored in archives of Ukrainian scientific institutions and in the personal scientist`s collections.
 Forced preparations for the sudden evacuation of the folklore archives, backup process and relocation, started by a group of folklorists from Kyiv and Lviv shortly before the Russian invasion, revealed a number of disadvantages of Ukrainian musical folklore archives organization. These include the impossibility of quick data transfer, unavailability of digital media backups, a lot of non-digitized materials stored on analog media, the inconsistency of analog and digital collection`s condition with modern (digital) information storage methods (mostly paper based documentation), etc.
 This article analyzes the current condition of the digital collections of Ukrainian musical folklore, which are located in the archives of several Ukrainian scientific institutions and in some personal collections of the scientists. The most important issues of organization and functioning of Ukrainian musical folklore digital collections are outlined.
 Existing principles and models of data structuring according to the modern analytical requirements outlined in the studies of Ukrainian emusicologists have been analyzed in detail. The new principles of data and metadata organization are proposed to simplify information search and analysis and extensive use of computer systems to work with digital collections of Ukrainian musical folklore.
 Development and implementation of a reliable digital repository as a component of the unified workspace for digitization, electronic archiving, analysis and presentation of the field folklore materials are intended not only to solve most of the mentioned issues related to the digital collections of Ukrainian musical folklore, but also to provide access to the intangible achievements of the Ukrainian nation for scientists, artists and a wide range of involved users.