IASA 2018 Annual Conference

While doing research for a book on the history of recorded Afrikaans music, the author undertook extensive searches of online discographic archives that yielded invaluable information on the earliest Afrikaans and Africana recordings. This information helped to establish the identity of the first recording artist in the Afrikaans language (dating to 1906 and previously omitted from all literature on the subject), as well as the first recordings of the national anthems of the two Boer republics (during the Anglo-Boer war in January 1900, by Dutch singers in Europe). However, none of the online archives had any actual sound clips of these recordings. This 'silence' brings with it its own challenges in terms of making sense of the information and disseminating this new knowledge to a wider audience. This paper seeks to interrogate the limitations of online archives, but also its value in widening perceptions on music heritage.