pub.mdw | Accompaniment in America: A Minimal-Computing Digital Collection for Hybrid Musicological Publication

Abstract

Despite the increasing digitization of music scholarship, historical musicology has been slow to adopt hybrid or multimodal approaches to research dissemination. This paper presents Accompaniment in America, a hybrid digital and print publication that bridges this gap by integrating traditional musicological scholarship with an open-access, minimal computing digital collection. The project – comprising a mini-monograph and a multifaceted digital companion – examines the institutionalization of collaborative piano in North America while demonstrating how lightweight, sustainable digital frameworks can enhance humanities research and publication without alienating traditional scholars or requiring extensive institutional resources. The collection, built by a team of two, leverages open-source tools (GitHub, Zenodo), hosts archival materials, interactive visualizations, and pedagogical resources, and adheres to FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). Designed for longevity and low technical and financial overhead, it serves as both a living archive and a model for minimal computing in musicology, addressing challenges of accessibility, copyright, and resource limitations. By pairing QR codes in the print edition with hyperlinked digital content, the project fosters engagement across analog and digital scholarly ecosystems. We argue that such minimal computing approaches can both enrich traditional musicological dissemination and democratize access to data and digitized archival material while preserving the comfort levels and preferences of traditional music scholars. The paper concludes with reflections on the key technical and legal challenges of small-scale hybrid publishing, including copyright barriers and the need for interdisciplinary collaboration. This small case study, while modest, offers actionable insights for scholars, computer scientists, librarians, and archivists seeking to integrate digital libraries into cultural heritage projects with limited budgets and infrastructure.

Date Issued 2025-09-25

Authors

VanderHart, Chanda | University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna

Wögerbauer, David | University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons

Weigl, David | University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna

DOI 10.1145/3748336.3750057

Language en

License CC-BY-4.0

Subjects Minimal Computing Hybrid Publication Historical Musicology Digital Collections Collaborative Piano History

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