Dear All,
We have only a small collection of old sound recordings, mostly reel to reel and cassette, as our collection policy until recently was not to take in such recordings as we had no preservation or access facilities for them. With the digital age we are reviewing this as it should now be possible for us to take in digital sound files and treat them in the same way as other digital files.
But, as others have already said, that leaves us with analogue material to look after and hopefully find a way to preserve and access. I had hoped at one time that we might be able to have a regional agreement in our area to help those of us without facilities but it never came to anything. Although I have my doubts about whether we could produce sufficient copyright clearance on some of our collections to satisfy them, I like the idea of handing our old sound recordings over to the BL very much indeed!
Pamela Birch
Conservator/Premises & Projects Officer
Bedfordshire & Luton Archives & Records Service
Tel; 01234 228908
Opening hours: Monday 9am-7pm, Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday 9am-5pm. Closed on Thursday.
Find out more about Bedfordshire's history and search our online catalogues at www.bedford.gov.uk/archive
-----Original Message-----
From: Archivists, conservators and records managers.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Mark Pomeroy
Sent: 24 March 2010 12:35
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Oral history archives
Like many of us I inherited a collection of compact cassette recordings.
The conversion of this material into a durable digital form was an
arduous task, completed in-house. Technology improved as I worked, to
the point where finally, three years ago, I was able to wav (boom boom!)
goodbye to cassettes forever. The original are retained, but secreted
somewhere inaccessible.
Every recording I now make is digital native and covered by copyright
clearance. I swiftly edit the recording the day after an event using a
popular free audio editing application (Audacity). A copy in .wav
format is saved to an external hard drive for mid/long term storage,
with recent events also remaining on my local disk for rapid access. A
gold archival audio CD (or however many are required) is burned and
catalogued for the archive. Lastly copies of the .wavs are posted to an
FTP server, from which the RA's Web Mistress pulls recordings, via a
quick conversion to .mp3, to be published as an RA Podcast.
The podcasts launched in April 2008 and as of now we have had 22,000
downloads. I am informed our current No.1 is a lecture by Father
Justin, Librarian of St. Catherine's Monastery Sinai, on the famous
icons therein. Podcasts are now very much a core aspect of the service
provided by the Academy and the question of resourcing the service does
not arise. In two years the collection of podcasts has already grown
into a significant on-line resource. The off-line archive of .wav files
and gold CDs should ensure long-term preservation.
This whole process has taken somewhere in the region of six years. The
archive now holds about 450 recordings and grows at approximately 70 a
year. I never want to go through the retro-conversion process again and
hope that the strategy used ensures the possibility will not arise.
Best wishes to all,
mark
Mark Pomeroy
Archivist
Royal Academy of Arts | Burlington House | Piccadilly | London | W1J 0BD
+44 (0)20 7300 5768
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THE ROYAL ACADEMY ARCHIVE IS SUPPORTED BY DAME JILLIAN SACKLER
-----Original Message-----
From: Archivists, conservators and records managers.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Teresa Doherty
Sent: 24 March 2010 11:25
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Oral history archives
Hi
We have our most recent interviews on CDs for production in the reading
room as MP3 files. We have the full WAV files on a server - this way
there is backup and the interviews will be included in any migration.
The problem with hard drives - as with tapes, cds, mini discs, reel to
reel et al - is out of sight out of mind. So many of our interviews are
stuck in the vaults.
I am of a similar opinion to David Lee that a central digital repository
is the way forward. We can still have access through our local and
specialist collections via our websites. The BL may even find that they
have more traffic because of this!
There is precendence for this. We at TWL have a "Women's Issues"
Collection of websites held by the British Library as part of their
larger collection. There are many benefits to this method of working.
BL has the technical capacity resources and ability to push this
forward. TWL has the specialist subject knowledge and the 'address
book' that makes the difference to the development of the collection.
In another collaborative project with ourselves the BL and the
University of Sussex, the British Library Sound Archive is collecting
and cataloguing interviews of the women's liberation movement.
Initially TWL was asked as a partner to take copies of the interviews.
But for this I would have to meet storage / migration issues, as well as
find cataloguing resources..... at a time when we know the BL will be
streaming some /all of this material in the not too distant future.
(The fact the BL is 20 minutes away from us is also a factor). Instead
we are a partner in terms of our specialist subject knowledge, our
address book, and the need from oral historians to have somewhere to
place the physical items that so often come out of the woodwork whilst
interviews are taking place. We will point to the resource from our
website. So the project has a physical collecting aspect for us.
Many of the more high profile oral history projects rely on copies of
the interviews being placed in different repositories as part of
dissemination and there are issues then about who takes responsibility
for the physical well being of the 'master' copy.
Elsewhere in the education sector we have seen a centralised repository
for academic journals - with the loss of local physical copies of
journals placed by subscriptions to centralised e-journals.
There are issues around centralised repositories but realistically I
cannot see all of us having the resources (and by this I include
technical expertise) to maintain individual digital repositories. How we
can actually make collaborations work and move forward in this direction
is another matter.
I'm looking forward to more of this discussion at the Digital
Preservation Workshop next week!
Teresa
________________________________________________________________
Teresa Doherty
Collections Manager
The Women's Library
London Metropolitan University
Old Castle Street
London E1 7NT
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www.thewomenslibrary.ac.uk
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For our online catalogues see www.thewomenslibrary.ac.uk/catalogue and
www.thewomenslibrary.ac.uk/archivemuseumcatalogue
For Genesis, a resource for women's history maintained by The Women's
Library, see www.genesis.ac.uk
For the Women's Web Archiving Collection at the British Library see
www.webarchive.org.uk/women
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