Former head of Library of Congress Recorded Sound Section to discuss future of audio archiving

Former head of Library of Congress Recorded Sound Section to discuss future of audio archivingMarch 30, 2006Mary Beth Hintonmbhinton@syr.edu

On Monday, April 17, at 4 p.m. in the Peter Graham Scholarly Commons on the first floor of Syracuse University’s E. S. Bird Library, Samuel Brylawski will give a talk, “What Goes Around Has Come Around: New Policies, Practices and Trends in Audio Preservation.” This free event is sponsored by Syracuse University Library Associates. Paid parking is available in Marion and Comstock visitor lots.

In the past few years, historical recordings, sound archives and audio preservation have received unprecedented support and interest from Congress, endowments and private foundations. The National Recording Preservation Act of 2000 will result in a national plan for the preservation of sound recordings and a foundation to support preservation work. In 2007, the Library of Congress will open its National Audio Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Va. Both the Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities have recently funded historical audio projects.

Brylawski, editor of the University of California Santa Barbara Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings and former head of the Library of Congress Recorded Sound Section, will present an overview of many promising developments in audio archiving, offer his view of what the future holds for audio archives in the United States and point out some of the existing impediments to ensuring the preservation of the nation’s audio heritage and wide access to the hundreds of thousands of historical recordings held by public and private archives.