View Content #6636
| Contentid | 6636 |
|---|---|
| Content Type | 1 |
| Title | Article: Rescuing Recorded Sound from Ravages of Time |
| Body | From http://www.huliq.com/31083/rescuing-recorded-sound-from-ravages-of-time Rescuing recorded sound from ravages of time August 20, 2007 While listening to National Public Radio in 2000, Carl Haber learned that the Library of Congress had a big problem. The Library's audio collection, which spans the 130-year history of recorded sound, includes the voices of Native Americans from now-vanished tribes. These echoes of a bygone era were recorded on media such as wax cylinders and shellac and lacquer discs. But many are now too fragile to play in their original format; the pressure of a stylus or phonograph needle could cause irreversible damage. Others are too broken, worn or scratched to yield high-quality sound. The archivists needed a means to preserve the recordings without injuring them further. A physicist with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Haber realized that an optical scanning system could solve the Library's quandary. UC Berkeley's Phoebe Hearst Museum and Native Americans are among those who could benefit the most from Haber’s new device. In the early 1900s, UC Berkeley anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and colleagues recorded the legends, songs, customs and voices of dozens of California Indians on some 3,000 one-of-a-kind wax cylinders. Many of these tribes and languages have since died out or are on the verge of extinction. The LBNL group is now collaborating with linguist Andrew Garrett and Victoria Bradshaw of the museum to digitize the Kroeber recordings. Remastering these cylinders could help new generations of native peoples study their ancestral customs and tongues—and help carry the sounds of the past into the future. Read the entire article at http://www.huliq.com/31083/rescuing-recorded-sound-from-ravages-of-time . |
| Source | ILAT |
| Inputdate | 2007-08-26 10:56:13 |
| Lastmodifieddate | 2007-08-26 10:56:13 |
| Expdate | Not set |
| Publishdate | 2007-08-27 00:00:00 |
| Displaydate | Not set |
| Active | 1 |
| Emailed | 1 |
| Isarchived | 1 |
