Association of Research Libraries (ARL®)

Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa
Assistant Director, Center for the Cultural Record
University of Texas at Austin

Mark Roosa
Director of Preservation
Library of Congress

Just seventeen years ago, the Associated Audio Archives (AAA), a special committee of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ASRC), undertook a groundbreaking audio preservation planning study. The National Endowment for the Humanities funded the study, whose goals were to better define and standardize audio preservation methods and practices. The committee, having completed an enormous planning study, pilot project, and finally, a full-fledged project resulting in the Rigler-Deutsch Record Index, a union index to some 615,000 pre-LP commercial recordings held in the then five participating archives, turned its attention to the preservation issues of sound archives. The author of a 1988 briefing of the study, Barbara Sawka, then curator of the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound, noted that the growing interest in paper preservation in libraries and archives helped to create a more receptive response to the preservation needs of sound recordings and other nonprint media. But, as Ms. Sawka notes in her synopsis of the planning study, and we know from experience, sound archivists have had a tough row to hoe to convince colleagues and funding agencies alike to make the pressing needs of audio materials a priority.

In ARSC/AAA's groundbreaking report, Audio Preservation: A Planning Study (1988), training and education for sound archivists was discussed at length. Much of the reporting conveyed the technical education needed to operate and maintain audio equipment and to conduct archival sound audio transfer and restoration work.

As the report noted, many of the heads of sound archives in 1988 were subject specialists who had acquired their technical knowledge on the job, not unlike the library preservation field in its nascent years. The report noted that sound archivists or archives administrators had little to choose from in the way of educational programs geared to the requirements of their profession.

Now let's flash forward. In the fifteen years following the publication of the ARSC/AAA study, a number of strides have been made to provide education on the issues of audio preservation. The Society of American Archivists, the American Library Association, the Association for Recorded Sound Archives, the Society of California Archivists, and the North Carolina Preservation Consortium, among other professional groups, have organized workshops and programs for professionals seeking audio preservation training. Educational materials have burgeoned; useful publications on identifying, handling, storing, and reformatting sound media abound in print and on the Web; and many organizations are now involved in sound preservation http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/bytopic/audio/#organizations. We now also have a number of excellent companies and individuals who provide professional audio reformatting services and consultation, something that has been sorely lacking until recently.

The preservation needs of audio collections have been acknowledged at the national level. Following the National Film Preservation Act of 1996, Congress passed the National Recording Preservation Act in 2000. Subsequently, the National Recording Preservation Board was created and charged with "developing a comprehensive National Recording Preservation Study and Action Plan" to "address issues such as the current state of sound recording archiving, preservation, and restoration activities; research and other activities carried out by or on behalf of the Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center at Culpeper, Virginia; the establishment of clear standards for copying old sound recordings; and current laws and restrictions regarding the preservation and use of sound recordings, including recommendations for changes to allow digital access and preservation" http://www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb/nrpb-about.html.

In March 2002, "Redefining Preservation, Shaping New Solutions, Forging New Partnerships," a conference sponsored by the University of Michigan University Library and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), called attention to the issues of audiovisual preservation by placing them high on the list of important issues for the preservation community. In response to the priorities set forth during the Michigan/ARL conference, the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) is presently conducting a survey of the state of recorded sound in academic libraries. The goals of the survey are to inform decision makers in academic libraries about the state of audio collections, the importance of audio collection for research and teaching, and how to lower the barriers to access http://www.clir.org/pubs/issues/issues32.html#audio.

In short, the profession has raised awareness about the cultural and sociological importance of sound, and has made sound accessible via intellectual control and preservation efforts.

During the June 2002 Annual Meeting of the American Library Association, we began to think about and plan a gathering of some of the key stakeholders to better understand the current landscape and to come up with some concrete actions for the future that the community could embrace and carry forward. Over the next few months and in discussions with colleagues this idea began to take shape and led to "Saving Sounds: Preserving Audio Collections," held in the newly renovated Harry Ransom Humanities Center on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, July 24–26, 2003.

"Sound Savings" brought together an esteemed group of curators, educators, scholars, and practitioners whose work represents the current thinking in the field of audio preservation. The papers presented here represent the fruit of their individual and collective experiences and, as they reveal, institutions are actively involved in all aspects of audio preservation. But there remains serious work ahead.

We should not be daunted. Many of the preservation issues we face with audio are common to all information entities. Experience is on our side. However, new challenges are magnified by the fact that the quantity of information held in all formats continues to swell. Interwoven with preserving the range and mass of media held in libraries and archives, there emerges the complicated problem of selecting what is to be preserved.

We hope that the information in these papers will provide insight into the current state of audio preservation. As evidenced by the growing interest and activity in audio preservation across the country, clearly the time has come for extended knowledge of the issues, challenges, and former and contemporary solutions employed in the preservation of sound recordings. This summer, "Sound Savings" took the profession to the next step in articulating the most pressing of the challenges we face. Conference attendees—critical stakeholders of the future of audio preservation—articulated seven areas for future action to move the field effectively forward. Our collective challenge in the months ahead will be to develop strategies to attain these goals. Stay tuned.

© 2003 Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa