And We Did It Our Way: A Case for Crowdsourcing in a Digital Library for Musicology

Abstract

This article makes the case for a digital library based on a crowdsourcing approach for musicology. At its heart, the argument draws upon ideas present in the popular music video TV show Pop-Up Video, a format devised in the late 1990s that embellishes the shown content with info nuggets that popup as bubbles and then disappear, as the video plays. We updated and extended the concept to operate in a web environment, choosing a digital library framework as a way to organize the set of videos contained in the site, and casting the popup information collated and displayed as metadata---aspects that further progress the argument for the developed software architecture being fit-for-purpose as a tool for musicologists. The article presents a walkthrough of the developed site, and then goes on to show how the elements present---particularly the gamification elements that focus on symbolic note content entered through a range of virtual musical instruments: piano, drum-kit and guitar---can be re-purposed for use by musicology scholars.