Study: Audio recordings of US history fading fast

[Ryst]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_endangered_digital_recordings

 

WASHINGTON

[Kerouac]

That would be an awesome job.

[Alndln2]

At the end of the day there is no medium that will last forever, and the transfer/archiving job will just keep growing until it is simply too much. Since it is of the opinion that civilization won't last forever anyway, are we just prolonging an act of futility?

[Ernest Buckley]

At the end of the day there is no medium that will last forever, and the transfer/archiving job will just keep growing until it is simply too much. Since it is of the opinion that civilization won't last forever anyway, are we just prolonging an act of futility?

 

Yes, its futile. The world is over populated and humans will continue to stress the planet to a point of no return. The earth or galaxy will in turn, "refresh" itself and be done with us. All history will be lost and it won`t matter. Another breed will come forth and start the process all over again.

 

Keeping it real, EB

[Adey]

But that new breed probably wont have enough time left to get to our stage of technology, because the earth is gonna be swallowed up by the sun anyway. We might be the last, on this planet at least.

 

But everything seems futile if you look at it the right (or wrong) way.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

That would be an awesome job.

 

 

Yeah, they hiring?

[Coaster]

 

But that new breed probably wont have enough time left to get to our stage of technology, because the earth is gonna be swallowed up by the sun anyway. We might be the last, on this planet at least. But everything seems futile if you look at it the right (or wrong) way.

 

 

maybe. we've had 100k years or less, and there is 2 billion more to go. the cockroaches and rats will win; just look at washington.

[Ernest Buckley]

 

maybe. we've had 100k years or less, and there is 2 billion more to go. the cockroaches and rats will win; just look at washington.

 

 

Yes, interesting point. I think you`re onto something.

 

This entire thread has me wondering... all of my files are on HDs and DVDs... how else does one back up? If all this digital data is being deteriorating just sitting there, what is one to do?

[MikeRivers]

 

The first comprehensive study of the preservation of sound recordings in the U.S., released by the Library of Congress, also found many historical recordings already have been lost or can't be accessed by the public. . . . Digital files are a blessing and a curse. Sounds can be easily recorded and transferred and the files require less and less space. But the problem, Brylawski said, is they must be constantly maintained and backed up by audio experts as technology changes. That requires active preservation, rather than simply placing files on a shelf, he said. The study co-authored by Rob Bamberger was mandated by Congress in a 2000 preservation law.

 

Yawn! This is news? We've known this for at least 25 years, since we started baking tape. There's a handful of professional archivists who have studied tape, wire, and disk formats and have the tools and skills to play just about medium on to which audio has been recorded. But they have to make a living, too, and it's hard to convince anyone but a large organization like the Library of Congress that there's some material that's worth preserving. The Library has made some choices, but they don't have room to store everything in the appropriate environment. They're already 50 years behind and are making a little headway as they learn more (hence need to spend less time studying every piece of material that comes into the archive), but the input keeps growing.

 

It's a given that not everything will be preserved forever. It's also a given that somebody is going to be disappointed that something wasn't saved.

 

By the way, I know both Sam Brylawski and Rob Bamberger. Both are completely sane (at least as sane as a person passionate about preserving sound can be) and neither is an alarmist. They leave that for the press. Rob has a great traditional jazz program on the radio, Hot Jazz Saturday Night. You can hear it live on line on Saturday evening, 8-11 PM Eastern time, or listen to archived shows.

[Coaster]

i have this DVD. it is very disturbing to me; i have watched it many times. this is one of the more pleasant spots.

 

if you havent seen this movie, you should.

 

warning: a difficult bite.

 

[YOUTUBE]jeEzb-0vf7A[/YOUTUBE]

[Jeff da Weasel]

Jesus, there's a ton of misinformation in this thread.

 

1. We've been biologically human for at least 200,000 years.

 

2. It's very likely that we are NOT the last sentient species that will inhabit this planet. We're only about halfway through the sun's lifecycle, meaning there's another 6 billion years before it goes kablooey.

 

3. Every civilization of humans has come and gone at some point, including many that lasted multiple thousands of years. The trick is leaving some kind of record that, while not being 100% permanent (nothing is in the really long term), lasts long enough for the next civilization to be aware of (much as we are still aware of elements of the Incas, the ancient Egyptians, and so on).

 

Personally, I don't see why we should really care. All stuff has to last is 100 years or so. After that, I'll be dead, and nothing I ever did was so freakin' awesome that it should be required study for some kid 1,000 years from now. Very little of what we humans create is so wonderful or original that it needs to last "forever". Find a way to preserve the Mozarts of the world, and you're good to go.

[Lee Flier]

Personally, I don't see why we should really care. All stuff has to last is 100 years or so. After that, I'll be dead, and nothing I ever did was so freakin' awesome that it should be required study for some kid 1,000 years from now. Very little of what we humans create is so wonderful or original that it needs to last "forever". Find a way to preserve the Mozarts of the world, and you're good to go.

 

Errhhh... the OP is specifically talking about 1) music that is acknowledged as great/culturally important e.g. Duke Ellington, and 2) recordings (e.g. radio and other news broadcasts) from important events in history.

 

I think future generations and/or future civilizations would care about those things.

[Jeff da Weasel]

I think future generations and/or future civilizations would care about those things.

 

Hell yeah (which is why I mentioned Mozart)! But my point is that we probably shouldn't be concerned with preserving everything. The glut of "content" (be it my album, this forum, or Lindsay Lohan's TMZ articles) we're making now dictates that much of it is utter {censored} that future generations can live quite well without.

[Lee Flier]

Oh yeah, agreed. But I don't think anybody has made any mention of preserving "everything."

[Jeff da Weasel]

I certainly hope not.

[spokenward]

 

Yawn! This is news? We've known this for at least 25 years, since we started baking tape. There's a handful of professional archivists who have studied tape, wire, and disk formats and have the tools and skills to play just about medium on to which audio has been recorded. But they have to make a living, too, and it's hard to convince anyone but a large organization like the Library of Congress that there's some material that's worth preserving. The Library has made some choices, but they don't have room to store everything in the appropriate environment. They're already 50 years behind and are making a little headway as they learn more (hence need to spend less time studying every piece of material that comes into the archive), but the input keeps growing.

 

 

Mike, do you know anything about the connection between Sony and the LoC jukebox mentioned in the yahoo link? I know that Sony had a massive project digitizing their own vault. I'm sure that they hoped to sell that technology to someone else, but there is a very small universe of potential buyers.

[Raymar]

How about flash drives? I have a couple that seem to be holding up pretty well.

[Jeff da Weasel]

 

How about flash drives?

 

 

The technology hasn't even been around long enough to measure its long-term data cohesion!

 

That's the issue: we really don't know how long much of this stuff will last.

[UstadKhanAli]

It's too bad we can't back up data with something that lasts a long time like, oh, say, radioactive waste. We'd take something like that and dump it in Yucca Mountain and, bang, that'd keep forever. Or even something like plastic bottles. I don't know. Can't someone think of something like that?

P.S. Mike Rivers, I'm joking again

[Raymar]

 

The technology hasn't even been around long enough to measure its long-term data cohesion! That's the issue: we really don't know how long much of this stuff will last.

 

 

I'd put my money on flash drives, solid state drives, basically memory without moving parts. I'm sure that type of memory will only get better in the future, then what is salvageable from the past will get transfered to those mediums. Time will tell.

 

I remember taking my first programming class back in the early 80s and I had to go buy a 5 1/2" floppy that held about 64k and I thought that was pretty impressive, a real step into the future. Now I've got an 8G flash drive that's considered pretty weenie. In another ten years or so you'll get 100 terabyte portable drives(if they still call them drives) of some kind.

[Lee Flier]

 

Yeah, WTF? When we need something to go away (like radioactive waste, or plastic in landfills), it seems to hang around forever. But when we want something to last forever, it degrades in a few years. How the hell does that happen?

[MikeRivers]

 

How about flash drives? I have a couple that seem to be holding up pretty well.

 

Photographers are losing their pictures already.

[MikeRivers]

 

Mike, do you know anything about the connection between Sony and the LoC jukebox mentioned in the yahoo link? I know that Sony had a massive project digitizing their own vault. I'm sure that they hoped to sell that technology to someone else, but there is a very small universe of potential buyers.

 

Later this year, the library will debut a National Jukebox online after securing a license to stream sound recordings controlled by Sony Music Entertainment.

 

No, I don't have any knowledge of that. My guess is that it has something to do with watermarking or anti-further-distribution scheme developed by Sony. Sony originally developed DSD (Direct Stream Digital) as a (ahem!) "future proof" method of digitizing their own music library but I don't see The Library as using it to stream audio from their on-line jukebox. As I recall, LofC is using 24-bit 96 kHz broadcast wave as their standard file format for archiving. I haven't been looking into what they'll be doing for distribution.

[spokenward]

 

Later this year, the library will debut a National Jukebox online after securing a license to stream sound recordings controlled by Sony Music Entertainment. No, I don't have any knowledge of that. My guess is that it has something to do with watermarking or anti-further-distribution scheme developed by Sony. Sony originally developed DSD (Direct Stream Digital) as a (ahem!) "future proof" method of digitizing their own music library but I don't see The Library as using it to stream audio from their on-line jukebox. As I recall, LofC is using 24-bit 96 kHz broadcast wave as their standard file format for archiving. I haven't been looking into what they'll be doing for distribution.

 

 

I found a Billboard article from 1999 with an outline description of the system Sony built.

[blue2blue]

Now that's out-of-the-containment-enclosure-area thinking for sure!