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LED Contributors
The Listening Experience Database is largely supported by the contributions of a growing number of volunteers who have generously donated their time, energy, and expertise to the project. The LED Team is enormously grateful for these contributions.
On this page you can find information about becoming a contributor to the Listening Experience Database, suggestions for future research, and a summary of the current research interests of our contributors. We will also append a list of names below of all those who have kindly offered assistance to this project since 2014.
Becoming a LED Contributor
Anyone interested in working on a particular individual who left letters, diaries, annotated books, autobiographies, etc., which contain references to their listening should get in touch with us. LED is looking for volunteers to work their way systematically through such materials in order to record evidence of listening to music.
If you would like to get involved with the project in any way, we are always delighted to hear from you! Please contact the project team.
What does a Contributor Do?
People contribute to our project in many different ways, but most commonly, we ask our volunteers to pick a listener—this can be a famous figure, or a relatively obscure one. It could also be a family member, if you own or know about material relating to their listening. Examples of material contributed from private collections can be found in our database. If you are already interested in a particular person, you can suggest that person to us, or you can pick one of the listeners from our ever-expanding list of potential sources, see here.
We then ask you to work through the diaries, letters, autobiographies, or memoirs of that person, noting every instance of listening via our online entry form.
Obviously, there is more material for some readers than for others, so the amount of material you will have to look at varies enormously—just let us know how much time you have available to spend on the project, and we can match you up with the most suitable historical figure.
We will supply you with a list of books to work from, and guidance about filling in the forms, and we are always happy to answer questions from you. We will also always listen to suggestions from you about how we might improve the database, or other ways in which you might like to contribute to the project.
Why should I become a Contributor?
You will be contributing to an internationally-recognised scholarly resource. Volunteers are the lifeblood of the LED project, and we value their contributions enormously. We also believe that being a LED volunteer is interesting and useful for the people who do it. For those with an enquiring turn of mind, the research brings its own rewards and benefits.
How do I become a Contributor?
Please join our community by signing up here or send an e-mail to arts-listening-experience@open.ac.uk, and one of the LED team members will get you started!
