Piql Book of References

Preserving Malaysia’s Music Heritage - A labour of love... Case Study

PHoM has developed a new collection of invaluable music heritage – proprietary documentaries on pioneer singers and bands, as well folk and cultural artistes. The documentary includes interviews with the living legends, chronicling their experience, thoughts and memories throughout their careers. CHALLENGE With clear foresight, PHoM was well aware of the longevity risks of its physical archives. Paper degradation, and vinegar syndrome was already visible in some of its older archives. The main risk was evident – any further loss of the physical object would be a consequence to a loss of piece of our cultural history.

PHoM has been steadily digitising their treasured repository. Digital audio conversions and document scanning became

part of the resource center’s daily grind. To date, PHoM’s has a digital archive of approximately 4TB, and continues to grow. As PHoM currently uses hard drives for its storage, that brought on another problem - data storage constraints and constant upgrades. Overall, the bigger concern was the limited lifespan of hard

drives and technological obsolescence. Hence, they needed a more reliable and secure archival medium to ensure that long term preservation can be achieved. SOLUTION Piql reached out to PHoM’s founder, Paul Augustin for an introduction to Piqlfilm’s innovative archival solution which can help resolve their long term preservation dilemma. Paul and his team researched our technology and saw its alleviating benefits to their problem. A proof of concept to store a selection of PHoM’s oldest music recordings from the early 1900s was undertaken. 26 recordings, converted from analog to digital audio files, alongside the vinyl images and album information (in excel) was first ingested. The proof of concept reel was completed with a video recording of Paul’s vision for the ongoing preservation of Malaysia’s music and cultural heritage. PHoM’s Piql proof of concept reel was delivered and exhibited at its inaugural symposium, titled “Echoes, Shadows & Footprints” in late June 2022. The event, organised by PHoM, was attended by exemplary ethnomusicologists, academicians, key experts, and progressive researchers of Malaysia’s performing arts and culture. FUTURE PHoM will be planning a progressive migration of its archives with Piql. “Much has been lost over time and we realise that we are in a fight against time to preserve these important irreplaceable treasures for posterity…we have found that the research and development efforts and significant client base of Piql makes it the current gold standard for long term digital data preservation”

Paul Augustin, Founder, Penang House of Music

Photo credits: PHoM; Buletin Mutiara