Curation and Heritage: Assignment 2
Task: Portfolio of three written pieces as detailed below.
Submission deadline: 2pm on 9 May 2024
Greatest Hits exhibition project
In summer 2024 there will be a physical and digital exhibition showcasing items from the Institute of Popular Music Archive. The title of the exhibition is Greatest Hits and will feature up to 20 items across the range of material. The digital exhibition will offer the chance to explore the selected items in more depth, through digital photography and enhanced content in the form of thematic labels and deep-dive articles. The articles will be written by students and staff within the University of Liverpool.
The material on show will cover a range of musical genres, time periods and formats. It aims to demonstrate the diverse range of music and music related materials found within the IPM Archive. This is an ‘authentic assessment’ as you will be engaged in this real-world project and will be following the brief of the other writers contributing to the Greatest Hits display. It is anticipated that one or two of the submitted assignments will feature in the final online exhibition.
Planning assignment 2
In week 7 (Monday 11 March and Tuesday 12 March) you will visit the Special Collections in the Sydney Jones Library. You will be split into three groups for these sessions so that the numbers are manageable in the space. Working with Louise Bruton you will be able to look at a selection of material and will pick one item for the focus of your work. Please bring your phones or cameras to this session as you will need to photograph the material for your scholarly use.
Once you have identified the item you will be asked to produce a short introduction to the item (130-150 words), a deep dive article (900-1000 words) and an account of the research informing the deep dive article (1000 words excluding references).
(The photos are attatched)
Further details of the assignment:
Using the item as the jumping off point you will develop a short piece of interpretation and a deep dive article. The writing should be accessible so it can easily be read by a non-expert audience visiting the University of Liverpool webpages.
Your writing will give the reader further depth and context about the selected item. For example, if you select a copy of the publication Smash Hits from the 1980s you might want to contextualise the magazine within UK music publishing and the teen press. If you are given material relating to the IASPM archive (International Association for the Study of Popular Music) you might want to contextualise this in relation to the development of popular music studies and the growth of this professional international organisation.
You will produce a portfolio of three pieces of text:
Short piece of interpretation: This is a short introduction to the item. Its purpose is to introduce a theme/section/grouping/question relating to the item and place the item in context. This text will be the basic information most online visitors read since not all visitors will click through to read the deep-dive articles. Word count: 120-150 words. Please keep strictly within the word limits. Further advice will be given to you on interpretation.
Article designed to be read on the University of Liverpool website: This article is a longer exploration of the item. It offers the chance for a contributor to go into more detail about potential meanings and interpretations of the item, its historical/cultural context, its significance in popular music, and/or to discuss how the item – and other archival items – are sources for academic research. Word count: 900-1000 words. Please keep strictly within the word limits. Do not exceed the maximum limit. Further advice will be given to you on writing style.
Produce an account about your research approach to writing the article. This should explain what research angle you adopted and what research you did to underpin the article. As you are dealing with a physical object in the collection please include your reflection on the value of this as a tangible resource – not just a digital one. You should identify any copyright or ethical considerations in relation to the digital display of the item. Include references to the scholarship that you drew on for this project and selective quotes as appropriate. This can be written in a scholarly style as it is not public-facing but is rather an articulation of the research and thinking behind the piece. Word count: 1000 words excluding references. (For this last component you can go under/over the word count by 10% without incurring penalties.)
