At Sound and Music, we are big on the idea of community, - it is one of our main reasons for opening up the British Music Collection into a world leading resource for the discovery of new music. One of the most exciting new features of the Collection website is the ability to free-tag composer profiles, scores, and articles - community engagement in a digital world. Free-tagging is a system whereby online content is classified collaboratively, - becoming entirely self-organised by the community who engage with it. Tag clouds not only display the vocabulary of users, but hierarchies, in the form of larger and smaller words. This opens up new ways of navigating through the collection, creating something which is by its very nature democratic and accessible.

The results of the free-tagging on this site thus far can be seen in our tag cloud, which is constantly in flux as users edit their profiles. Working through the Collection adding tags to profiles is a time consuming (though hugely enjoyable - even compulsive!) affair. We are currently seeking volunteers to help us add a range of tags to material in the Collection, which will greatly increase the ability of future users to discover new things within it. So whether you are an emerging or established composer, a student, or a music lover who would like to get involved with an online community project that can be done remotely and entirely in your own time, we would love to hear from you. Please send a short covering email explaining why you would like to be involved to angharad.cooper@soundandmusic.org by 1st August 2014.