Making a Scene: A Scenes Approach to a Local Music Archives

Abstract

The New Brunswick Music Scene Archive (NBMSA) was founded in 2015 to document the musical life—primarily the independent rock, punk, and hardcore music—of New Brunswick, New Jersey, home of Rutgers University. The NBMSA builds on local music archives' common use of documentation strategy to build collections and connect with donors by engaging the scenes approach from popular music studies. The scenes approach allows archivists building local music archives similar to the NBMSA to consider cultural roles and practices; relationships, memories, and meaning-making among participants; inclusivity; and the key role of physical and virtual spaces into their collection development and appraisal work and outreach. Through the lens of the NBMSA this article presents examples of how the scenes approach can be applied in documenting underground, hidden, and virtual networks that archivists may not be privy to; in considering affect in collection development, appraisal, and outreach; and in recalibrating the advisory board concept.