E.T. Bryant Memorial Prize 2019

The E.T. Bryant Memorial Prize 2019 is awarded to Kirsty Morgan (National Library of Scotland) for a dissertation for the degree of MSc at the University of Strathclyde entitled: Linked Data in Small Archives. A Case Study of the David Fanshawe World Music Archive.

The dissertation is exceptionally well researched, well-organised, tightly-argued and well balanced in its conclusions. It presents many important issues surrounding the use and value of Linked Data in cataloguing systems, which should prove invaluable to those who wish to know more about its possibilities. The ethical, musicological and cataloguing concerns which world music archives encounter are also addressed. She also concentrates commendably on the nature of the archive described and how it might develop to be better known. It examines in broader terms the problems which small archives encounter. Dr Nicholas Clark has commented that “She has underlined the challenges of devising a system that will draw together for users the diverse content of this ethnomusicology collection and has offered potential solutions by comparing the methods other libraries have used in cataloguing”.

Pam Thompson
E.T. Bryant Prize Convenor