​The International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (IAML) is a global organisation that fosters the activities of music libraries, archives, and documentation centres. These efforts support projects in music bibliography, music documentation, and music library and information science at both national and international levels. A key component of IAML’s work is its annual international congress, which rotates among different countries each year, offering a platform for knowledge exchange, collaboration, and the celebration of musical heritage.

This year the congress was held for the first time on African soil and it was organised by the Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service, in collaboration with representatives from the University of Cape Town. Delegates from 28 countries attended the congress. The programme included sessions on cataloguing and metadata, user experience and service development, historical and composer collections, church music, radio archives, digital collections, and the use of AI and machine learning in libraries, among other topics. The programme strongly emphasised African content, reflecting the continent’s diverse musical traditions and contemporary innovations. Sessions also covered colonial and post-colonial impacts, digital collections, music institutions, music encoding, indigenous and folk music and instruments, and popular culture in Africa. This thematic emphasis celebrated African musical heritage and fostered dialogue and collaboration among international and African scholars and practitioners.

In total about 107 presentations were presented during the week-long congress, with 11 presentations by Stellenbosch University:

  • Bridget Rennie-Salonen
    Illustrating transdisciplinary research innovation: Music, health, and wellbeing

  • Ingrid Gollom
    An overview of the life and career of South African concert pianist Lionel Charles Bowman (1919-2006) as compiled from the primary source material in the Lionel Bowman Collection (Stellenbosch University)

  • Anita Breckbill (University of Nebraska, Lincoln), Mnukwana Ncebakazi (Stellenbosch University)
    Freedom: Anders Nyberg and the Spread of Songs from South Africa

  • Jürgen May, Inge Engelbrecht, Anke Froehlich
    The Genadendal Music Archive (GMA): A Challenging Affair

  • Esther Pauw
    Curating a colonial archive: The Tamássy-Pauw flute and chamber scores collection

  • Amy Rommelspacher, Isabel Murray
    Tracing the history of a 1919-hymnbook in Malawi – a new reading of the DRC archival music collection

  • Prof Lizabé Lambrechts (Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation, Stellenbosch University) and Ms Saskia van der Want (Stellenbosch University)
    Making the invisible visible: Investigating the hidden life of fungi in the archive

  • Mieke Struwig
    The South African Music Encyclopedia: Perspectives from the Archive

  • Siviwe Bangani ( Library and Information Service)
    Demonstrating scholarly impact: acknowledgement of music libraries in students’ theses and dissertations in South Africa

  • Jonathan Hughes
    Settler Artefacts as Political Currency: Percival Kirby and a Chamber Organ by William Hill (c.1832)

  • Pakama Sbongile Ncume (Library and Information Service)
    Bringing the ‘hidden’ to the ‘public’: The case of Hidden Years Music Archive

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