LITA Nashville -- Opening Session

Save America’s Treasures: Preservation of Rare Acetate and Vinyl Recording Transcriptions

Dr. John Rumble, Alan Stoker, and Steve Maer of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

What better way to open a conference (the Library and Information Technology Association's National Forum) in Nashville than a presentation by people from the Country Music Hall of Fame. We learned about the challenges of migrating and preserving acetate disc recordings. These were instantaneous recordings, cut directly to disc (not pressed for wide distribution) that were designed to be played only a few times, usually for radio broadcast. Even under the best environmental conditions, these deteriorate much faster than vinyl and most have not been kept in the best environments. Most are metal-based discs. During World War II, when metals were scarce, they were made from glass--those are even more fragile.

Using an NEA grant, they have been preserving some of the acetate discs in their collection, transferring the data to a digital format and analog tape, adding appropriate metadata, and storing the originals in acid-free sleeves. The disc cleaning and the data entry have proven to be more time-consuming than estimated. The greatest expenses are the labor involved in the audio transfer and compiling the metadata.

Possibly the most exciting acetate disc in the collection is the first network broadcast of the Grand Ole Opry from October 14, 1939. They played selections from the show for us and the sound quality is quite amazing—more like listening to an old record than an old radio broadcast.

Labels: conferences

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