Ethnomusicology

Throughout its more than 100 year history, the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv, part of the Ethnology Department of the National Museums in Berlin, Ethnological Museum (formerly the Museum für Völkerkunde), has devoted its activities to the collection of and research in traditional music from all over the world.

The Sound Archive is charged with the collection, preservation, documentation and dissemination of the museum's audio-visual heritage collection. The Sound Archive is largely responsible for generating oral histories as part of the museum’s research, exhibitionary and education practice. In addition to a number of life histories with District Sixers and ex-residents from other sites of forced removals, the AV collection consists of home video footage from District Six, documentaries relating to apartheid South Africa as well as footage related to New Year Carnival and musical traditions in Cape Town.

The Institute of African Studies was established in 1961 and over the years has grown to host several teaching and research units including the holdings of the International Centre for African Music and Dance (ICAMD) inherited from Emeritus Professor J.H. Nketia, and which currently has an audiovisual collection of over 3,000 recordings and over 8,000 photographs.

Makerere University Klaus Wachsmann Music Archive (MAKWMA) is a multimedia archive and resource center for traditional, popular and art music, recited word, dances and stories and recollections of musicians and dancers of Uganda.

The Phonogrammarchiv, an institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, is the oldest sound archive in the world. It preserves, produces, collects, accessions, and processes as well as makes available research sound and video recordings by predominantly Austrian scholars and institutions, without disciplinary or regional restrictions. At present its holdings comprise ca. 67,000 items, representing a total playing time of ca. 11,000 hours (including ca. 950 hours of video recordings).

The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) is a college of the University of London and the only Higher Education institution in the UK specializing in the study of Asia, Africa and the Near and Middle East. SOAS Library specializes in the collection of archives, manuscripts and other primary source materials relating to Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, the Americas, the Caribbean, the South Pacific and Australasia.