ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the extent to which popular music heritage, as a form of cultural heritage, is both practice and process, inasmuch as its meanings and uses are socially, spatially and temporally enacted, and, are constantly being remade and renegotiated. It then explains the desire of individuals and communities to take on the role of custodians of popular music heritage are prevalent rather than isolated. They produce archives and museums that are distinct and specific, but reside on a continuum of popular music heritage practice at the community level. They have a history; and that they relate to an identifiable set of concerns, making themselves public through the practices of communities and individuals wishing to participate in the management of music heritage. Attention then turns to the extent to which Do-It-Yourself (DIY) archives and museums can offer alternative histories of popular music's past followed how one independent archival project is breaking new ground in the archiving and preservation of CDs.
