Design of an indigenous music information storage and retrieval system in Eritrea

This study was conducted at the Music Library of the Ministry of Information (ML-MOI) and the Music Library of the Cultural Affairs (ML-CA) of Eritrea. The main aim of the study was to design an appropriate Indigenous Music Information Storage and Retrieval System for Eritrea. A quantitative approach was mainly used to obtain data from a purposefully selected sample. The qualitative approach was also used in some research stages. Methods used included document analysis, questionnaire, personal interview, focus group discussion and observation. It was found that music data was recorded in a register, which also served as a finding aid. Users' preference was to search for music by artist, title, producer, occasion, subject or language. Unfortunately this was not possible with the system that was being used since it only allowed searching through the name or initials of an artist. The paper recommends the establishment of an automated indigenous storage and retrieval system to enable registration of indigenous knowledge information, offering facilities for indexing, searching and report generation.