The digitisation of the Lokananta music archive
As a preservation strategy, the Lokananta music library has turned to digitisation. Efforts to preserve archival materials mean ensuring that selected music sources survive so that future generations can continue to access them. Beyond preservation, the digitisation of music archives protects the collective memory locked inside the records. Music archives carry vital informational value; arguments are indisputable on that point. While textual archives perform their role in daily affairs, audio-visual media also exert a significant influence on the public. Through digitisation, the information stored in Lokananta’s collection can stay intact and serve future generations.
Lokananta converts analogue archives — LPs and master tapes — into computer formats. Library staff transfer the sonic content from records into digital files. The work does not end with file conversion alone. The management of Lokananta Music Library in Surakarta, together with artists from the Art Institute of Yogyakarta, has built a digital music library loaded with Lokananta recordings. This online library opens to the general public. Users can stream digitised songs directly from the website. The digital library represents one method for preserving Indonesian music. Its rationale: Lokananta’s music archive forms part of the Indonesian nation’s heritage. The web-accessible collection helps raise awareness that Lokananta has preserved music archives since 1956. Indeed, music archives perform multiple roles for the country.
Sixty albums have been converted so far. Among them can be found “The Message of HE President Soekarno on The Opening Ceremony of The First Asian-African Journalist’s Conference on April 24, 1963” as well as the song “Indonesia Raya” in an instrumental version whose lyrics cover three stanzas. Alternatively, listeners can find the album “The Fourth Asian Games, Souvenir From Indonesia”, released as a keepsake for athletes competing in the 1962 Asian Games held in Jakarta.
The music materials stored at Lokananta paint a picture of Indonesia’s musical development. Indonesia contains many diverse cultures, ethnicities, and races; each possesses its own cultural tradition. The same holds true for the types of song found in every region. From the earliest records of 1956 onwards, Lokananta supplies evidence regarding the growth of Indonesian music across generations. Archivists categorise the stored recordings into three periods: the Old Order, the New Order, and the Reform era. With such a broad range of music preserved in one spot, it becomes possible for us to understand the way music evolved within each of those periods.