Photo Gallery
D.K. Wilgus
D.K. Wilgus records the legendary blues guitarist Son House at the 3rd annual UCLA Folk Festival, 1965. (UCLA Digital Library, L.A. Times Collection)
Mariachi at UCLA
Mantle Hood Playing a Bonang
Grupo Folklórico de UCLA
Multi-regional Sources
This page includes links to online audiovisual resources that represent much of the world. If you are looking for a specific geographic region, please use the sub-pages and choose the appropriate geographic area: Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia and the Pacific, Europe, the Middle East.
UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive Field Recordings on Adam Matthew Digital
- Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings
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Presenting 60 field collections held by the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, this diverse and comprehensive resource features thousands of audio field recordings and interviews, film footage, field notebooks, slides, correspondence, and ephemera from around the world. - Adam Matthew Archive Explorer
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The UCLA Library subscribes to dozens of Adam Matthew databases. Adam Matthew specializes in archival collections/primary resources. You can use Archive Explorer to search across databases.
UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive on California Revealed
- UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive on California RevealedCalifornia Revealed is a California State Library initiative that helps public libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other heritage groups digitize, preserve, and provide online access to archival materials documenting the state's histories, arts, and cultures. The UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive's collection at California Revealed consists of texts, still images, and audiovisual recordings featuring musicians, tradition bearers, and cultural practices that illuminate the rich cultural diversity of California.
UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive on the Internet Archive
- UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive channel on the Internet ArchiveEstablished in 1961, the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive’s collection of more than 200,000 audio, video, print, and photographic items documents musical expressions throughout the world. As part of UCLA’s Department of Ethnomusicology, the Archive preserves over 60 years’ worth of audio and video recordings of the department’s famed concerts and lectures by legendary scholars and performers. Lectures, performances, and more are available online on the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive channel on the Internet Archive.
UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive on Aviary
- UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive on Aviary
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Available Ethnomusicology Archive collections include not only field recordings, but also recordings from the Ethnomusicology World Music Ensembles (including the very first Spring Concert from 1960) and the radio program, "The Many Musics of Man" featuring UCLA Ethnomusicology faculty and students. Use your UCLA LOGON to access.
UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive on the UCLA Digital Library
- UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive on the UCLA Digital LibraryIncludes the D.K. Wilgus collection, the UCLA Ethnomusicology photograph collection, the Bake/Jairazbhoy Digital Archive of South Asian Traditional Music and Arts, the Donn Borcherdt collection, the Mantle Hood papers, and the James Arkatov world music photograph collection.
Alexander Street Press
- Music Online: Smithsonian Global Sound This link opens in a new window
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Smithsonian Global Sound makes accessible tens of thousands of audio recordings and hundreds of videorecordings, including the published recordings owned by Smithsonian Folkways and the archival audio collections of Folkways Records, Cook, Dyer-Bennet, Fast Folk, Monitor, Paredon, and other labels, as well as recordings from the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections and content from partner archives including the International Library of African Music, the Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology of the American Institute for Indian Studies, the Aga Khan Music Initiative for Central Asia of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and others still to come.
- World Music from Alexander Street
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World Music from Alexander Street supports the teaching and research of musical traditions from around the world, with coverage of music from almost 170 countries and over 1,000 cultural groups. In addition to an extensive folk music collection, World Music features content from a host of genres - reggae, hip-hop, rap, electronic, spoken word, and more. Includes Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries and Contemporary World Music.
- Music Online: Contemporary World Music This link opens in a new window
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Music from all the regions of the world including important genres such as reggae, worldbeat, neo-traditional, world fusion, Balkanic jazz, African film, Bollywood, Arab swing and jazz, and other genres such as traditional music - Indian classical, fado, flamenco, klezmer, zydeco, gospel, gagaku, and more. Complements: Smithsonian Global Sound, the collection of American traditional musics. Liner notes to the original recordings are available.
Film and Video Online
- British PathéSince the invention of the moving image in the 1890's, British Pathé began recording every aspect of global culture and news. With their unique combination of information and entertainment, British Pathé's documentaries, newsreels, serials and films changed the way the world saw itself forever. All 85,000 newsreels are now searchable and viewable on YouTube.
- EVIA: Ethnographic Video for Instruction and AnalysisThe EVIA Digital Archive Project is a a joint initiative of Indiana University and the University of Michigan to establish a repository of ethnographic video recordings to support scholars in the ethnographic disciplines, with a special focus on the fields of ethnomusicology, folklore, anthropology, and dance ethnology.
- Ethnographic Video Online: Foundational Films This link opens in a new window
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Volumes I and II of Ethnographic Video Online. Contains streaming video of documentary footage focused on the study of human culture and behavior. Includes ethnographic films, documentaries, select feature films, interviews, field notes, and study guides. See also volume III, Indigenous Voices; and, volume IV, Festivals and Archives.
- Filmakers Library Online
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Filmakers Library Online provides award-winning documentaries with relevance across the curriculum—race and gender studies, human rights, globalization and global studies, multiculturalism, international relations, criminal justice, the environment, bioethics, health, political science and current events, psychology, arts, literature, and more. It presents points of view and historical and current experiences from diverse cultures and traditions world-wide. The current release provides 1,018 titles, equaling approximately 803 hours. - Folkstreams: A National Preserve of Documentary Films about American Roots CulturesFolkstreams' goal is to build a national preserve of hard-to-find documentary films about American folk or roots cultures and give them renewed life by streaming them on the internet. The films were produced by independent filmmakers and focus on the culture, struggles, and arts of unnoticed Americans from many different regions and communities. The site includes streaming video with essays about the traditions and filmmaking, transcriptions, study and teaching guides, suggested readings, and links to related websites. There is also a Google map showing the location of all the films currently on Folkstreams.
- Kanopy
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UCLA Library offers access to an academic version of Kanopy for current students, staff, and faculty, including selected titles from the Criterion collection, A24, New Day, Kino Lorber, PBS, and other content providers. - UCLA Research Guide: Film and Video CollectionsResearch Guide for Film and Video collections available at UCLA, including streaming services.
Additional Resources
- 1890 Passamaquoddy Phonograph RecordingsThis collection features the original Fewkes/Passamaquoddy phonograph recordings and associated fieldnotes, primary materials, and related journal articles. Part of the Passamaquoddy Peoples' Knowledge Portal, Kulasihkulpon yut Peskotomuhkati-pomawsuwinuwok Etoli-kisokehkimsultimok.
- British Library SoundsBritish Library Sounds is the result of a development project to increase access to the British Library Sound Archive's extensive collections. The British Library Sound Archive holds over 3.5 million audio recordings, including one of the world's largest collections of recordings variously described as traditional, folk or 'world' music. British Library Sounds presents 50,000 recordings and their associated documentation from the Library’s extensive collections of unique sound recordings which come from all over the world and cover the entire range of recorded sound: music, drama and literature, oral history, wildlife and environmental sounds, including 268 ethnographic wax cylinders. (The collection guide to the Ethnographic Wax Cylinder Collection is available on pdf.) And make sure and check out their Playback & Recording Equipment collection. It shows images of more than 90 machines from the British Library's collection of playback and recording devices, charting the history of sound reproduction technology.
- Digital Public Library of AmericaThe DPLA is a free, open-source resource that makes a number of digital collections and archives across the country available in one place. DPLA partners include the Smithsonian, the National Archives, New York Public Library, the University of Virginia, Harvard, Digital Library of Georgia, Minnesota Digital Library, Mountain West Digital Library, the University of California, and others.
- Endangered Archives ProgrammeThe Endangered Archives Programme seeks to preserve cultural heritage and make it available to as wide an audience as possible. To achieve this they provide grants to applicants to digitise and document archives. ‘Endangered’ means material that is at risk of loss or decay, and is located in countries where resources and opportunities to preserve such material are lacking or limited. ‘Archives’ refers to materials in written, pictorial or audio formats, including manuscripts, rare printed books, documents, newspapers, periodicals, photographs and sound recordings.
- Europeana RadioAlmost 200,000 tracks collected from sound archives across Europe are now available on Europeana Radio. Listeners can browse a wide range of sound recordings (Classical, Folk, and Popular music), play them on random mode, and even tag the musical genres recognised. Indeed all users can become archivists by tagging the musical genres of the recordings whilst listening to them.
- Global JukeboxAn interactive website that allows users to listen to and learn about more than 6,000 songs from 1,000 cultures — including many from Alan Lomax’s personal collection. The website is organized by map and by culture. The samples were digitized from hard copies at the Library of Congress and include 1978 field recordings from the Kullu culture in Himachal Pradesh, India; harvest songs from 1954 Romania; and a ballad to John Henry from Asheville, N.C., in 1941, recorded by Lomax.
- Internet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. The Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages in their collections.
- Our Songs: A Celebration of Music and Origin from the World's Indigenous PeoplesOur Songs is a co-production between eight Indigenous television broadcasters across the globe who are partners in the World Indigenous Television Broadcasting Network (WITBN). From traditional music, modern interpretations of traditional songs, rap, acoustic, folk songs, to rock, forty-three Indigenous artists around the globe deliver a variety of music and languages.
- Radio GardenListen to worldwide radio stations by spinning a digital globe. In addition to the live streaming feature, it also lets you listen to historical radio broadcasts and a selection of jingles and station identifiers from around the world.
- UCLA Center for Oral History ResearchThe mission of the UCLA Library's Center for Oral History Research is to document the history of Southern California and the Los Angeles metropolitan region through oral history interviews. The center gives information and advice regarding the practice of oral history to UCLA students, faculty, and staff as well as to the broader Los Angeles community. It offers campus and community workshops and provides instruction on oral history methodology to UCLA classes.
- UCLA Library Digital Collections This link opens in a new windowRare and unique digital materials developed by the UCLA Library to support education, research, service, and creative expression, including the AIDS Poster Collection, the Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive and more.
- National Recording Preservation Board: Online Resources: ArchivesMajor archives throughout the world which house significant collections of recorded sound.