Archives, Accessibility, and Digital Music Scores

Background

In online archival spaces, music scores are typically available as PDF or JPEG files. Most newly created music scores are PDFs; if they are archived, it is usually in PDF or PDF/A format [1]. PDF formats—except PDF/UA—are frequently inaccessible to Disabled users because they are incompatible with many assistive technologies. As a result, most archives’ digital music scores are inaccessible to many Disabled users.

What I did

From a sampling of 55 archives, 22 had music items available. Of those, 10 had those items available online. 2 had only audio files, and 8 had music scores. For those 8, I used Adobe’s Accessibility Report and my own inspection to determine what the most significant accessibility barriers were for each file.

What I found

The most common file types were PDFs  (8) and MP3s (2). The most common PDF score accessibility barriers I encountered were:

• Image-only PDFs

• Missing alt-text

• Low color contrast [2]

• Illogical reading/tab orders

• Unordered headings

Where do we go from here?

Fixing each of the above accessibility barriers one-by-one would, at best, be tedious, and, at worst, not be possible. So, what can we do? Encoding music scores using the Music Encoding Initiative (MEI) might provide a path forward. 

Essentially, the archivist, librarian, student worker, or other involved party manually enters the contents of each score into a free app called MuseScore. This is still tedious, but there are initiatives underway that might expedite or even automate this process. Once the music is in the app, it can be exported to any number of file formats, including MEI and musicXML, which are excellent for preservation. They can also be exported into formats that help with accessibility, like Braille or modified stave notation.

Creating a MuseScore version of the score also acts as a workaround for the aforementioned accessibility issues. These files are not image-only, they don't need alt text for their so-called "images," and they have a high black-and-white color contrast. MuseScore uses ordered headings, and files exported from it use a logical reading order.

MEI encoding every music score an archive holds is an incredibly high bar to reach for—but new tools can help speed up the process, and the accessibility benefits from it cannot be understated. 

Examples

To view and download examples of files created using this workflow, including modified stave notation, Braille, and WAV, you can visit the project GitHub page. Note that the modified stave notation files are made using an example set of settings that are not representative of all modified stave notation scores or user needs.

Video

Recorded for the 94th Meeting of the Music Library Association.

Poster

References

1. Akau, S., McKinney, J., & McNellis, R. (2023). Preferred preservation formats for digital music scores: A survey of university music faculty. Notes, 79(4), 495–523. https://doi.org/10.1353/not.2023.a897455 

Recommended Reading

1. Co, E., Dirig, R., Halstead, J., Hendrie, M., & Masilko, T. (2023). Reimagining access: Improving access to digital archives through participatory design. Journal of Digital Media Management, 11(4), 324–333. https://doi.org/10.69554/IAGK5522 

2. Pineo, E. Discoverability, usability, and readability: A framework for assessing accessibility for Disabled users of online archives. Forthcoming. 

3. Pineo, E.A. (2024). Human rights, information access, and finding aids. Including Disability, 4, 1–51. https://doi.org/10.51357/id.v4i 

Presented at the 

94th Meeting of the Music Library Association

March 17–21, 2025