Since I’m not the biggest heavy metal fan, I figured I would step outside of my comfort zone and take a look at this collection. A quick glance at how it’s organized, I found the collection to contain some standard things such as books, DVD’s, and recordings. But there were also some surprising things (to me at least) of ephemera, fanzines, and show fliers. All of these are described to be contained in several boxes, a shoe carton, map folder, etc. that take up 15.9 linear feet.
Since most of the materials in the collection had a time, date, and location, one of the immediate historical narratives that came to my mind was the narrative of the development of this collection. This could be told through a map and a timeline where a marker on the timeline would display pins with the artifact from the collection hovering over the location of origin. As the user drags the marker through the timeline, it would be easy to tell where certain genres of heavy metal originated, when it was most popular, and how did it spread throughout the world/US. The user can also analyze which artists were able to produce material that showed up in the collection the most. With the memorabilia, ephemera, fanzines, and show fliers displayed on the map, a user can additionally take note of the location and duration of a particular band’s popularity.
However, a lot of consideration should be taken when viewing this narrative. First and foremost, it is a narrative of the collection, and it is not necessarily a representation the entire heavy metal music movement. In other words, what could be at play here is selection bias – bias towards what was available for selection in creating the collection. Some things that may be missing from this record is the global scale of heavy metal music – material available in other parts of the world could not be included in the collection. Certain popular bands may also be missing due to trends, lack of or poor record keeping, or they just did not produce a lot of a paper trail for them to exist in records or collections created today.
Among other considerations when viewing this proposed narrative for the collection, it is entirely possible that there are other sources that can enhance or tell a more complete story of heavy metal music. If possible, comparing this collection with collections of heavy metal music in Europe or Asia would help tell a more global story. Additionally, comparing the frequencies of material in the collection with historical Billboard Top 100 ranking in the heavy metal category would help determine if there are any bias present in the collection for one artist or another.
Ultimately, it is not entirely clear whether or not these additional sources exist. History and the narratives told from history are only as perfect as the people, records, and collections involved in telling these narratives. With the opportunity to tell more complete stories with emerging technologies and digital humanities as a field, I find it a very exciting time to be telling historical stories that are, hopefully, more well considered than historical narratives told before.
Hey!
I liked how you extensively covered what is needed to make the narrative of this collection better. I agree with your thoughts on how this collection might be biased because it does not include all the bands or participants in the narrative of the collection of heavy metal music. Great post!