I must say I'm surprised and heartened by the fact that there's even an interest in old Japanese recordings, and I'm not sure how, I've managed to create the impression that I was looking to dispose of my collection. Quite to the contrary, I'm still very interested and don't intend to relinquish it without putting up a good fight! :-) What I was hoping to point up was the fact that there must be many recordings out there languishing, as I found them, in basements and storage rooms in all sorts of places, because of lack of resources, interest, etc., that if brought to the attention of collectors and enthusiasts, might actually be put in hands of those who could actually do something with them, even if it's to file away in their own collections. At least then, should someone inquire about such recordings in forums like these, someone else could actually respond coherently and with additional information as gleaned from the recordings in their possession. As far as it being open, meaning to the public, no, but I'd be more than happy to at least attempt to answer any questions. I'm in the outskirts of Los Angeles, CA. Being a third generation Angeleno, my Japanese is a bit quaint (my Japanese school teachers were blue-haired ladies who were old enough to be able to recite the Emperor Meiji's "Edict on Education" from memory) but with my trusty character dictionary, I get by. "Tough to survey" is an understatement. If ever I'd run into a cold, stony wall, it was when I attempted to contact several what I presumed to be notable scholars of Japanese popular music who had posted quite a bit of information on the Internet, complete with e-mail contact information. Surely an invitation for inquiries, right? Wrong. Not even a "sorry, can't help you" or a "your Japanese is horrific and unintelligible." Then perhaps (though I doubt it), I just haven't hit on the right "expert." I know the website that Steve refers to...it went dark within weeks of my having discovered it. If only I'd known... I have managed to snag a handful of mp3s of 78-era Japanese pop music, the source of which shall remain nameless. There is an elderly gentleman in his mid-80's in Japan who had been trying with little success to post mp3s or midis of older Japanese recordings on his website, but after running into so many copyright roadblocks, has pretty much conceded defeat. Unfortunately, his entire website is in Japanese, but he gives a biography including his time in the Japanese military during WWII, and a rather comprehensive discography of pre-war popular recordings he painstakingly key-punched from handwritten notes. Almost 20,000 lines and eight fields across, by no means a small feat. On top of that, he claims to have handwritten notes for post-war popular recordings as well, but feels he's too old to even begin attempting to key-punch them in their entirety and to his satisfaction. Mark Takasugi -----Original Message----- From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of steven austin Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 10:07 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] A scenario for bequests Many here are administers of private archives, and these surely must be accessible to scholars and enthusiasts after a bit of qualification. Some collections have limited access simply because they are stand-alones and private passions. Sad to say, there is no single source or network for all recorded music. However... On-line accessibility of collections is simply the best-ever innovation. No more trudging across the country to some library to sit in a nasty listening booth...only to find the material is not where it should be. That quality of access is still available, but for most listeners, the effort is forbidding. I'm yearning for the day when everyone posts their collections as MP3s (and for video, a single adequate file format, instead of the dozens of fussy little incompatible file types we see today). And, yes, I'm talking through my hat" I don't have a single file posted. So, Mark...where are you, and is your collection open? I find Japanese pop and enka very enjoyable, but tough to survey. There use to be a nice selection of pop hits from the 20s forward online, but it finally went dark. Steven Austin -----Original Message----- From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mark Takasugi Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 9:36 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] A scenario for bequests I got started on an ethnic Japanese recordings collection by discovering a stash of 78s in the bowels of a local Japanese retirement home while a volunteer during junior high school. Well-meaning donors had gifted the home with the recordings, thinking the "older folks" would enjoy the older music. The institution, of course, lacked the know-how and resources to create any kind of meaningful circulation system, and rather than refuse such donations, accepted them and quietly relegated them to a basement store room, where I found them. Legalities aside (this was almost thirty years ago), the director of the home was more than happy to have me cart them away. It took quite a few bus trips to get them home. Would they be of interest to an institution or collector? I don't know. Some labels and artists are so obscure that I can't find mention of them even in the "uber-documentation" on the Internet in Japanese, let alone in English. I'm not familiar with the legal obligations associated with bequests, or the capacity of institutions to manage disposition, if you will, of "unwanted" material, but surely a way can be found to make them available to individuals or other institutions that may be looking for them and indeed offer, as Steve indicates, a cozy home? Mark Takasugi -----Original Message----- From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of steven austin Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 7:28 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] A scenario for bequests May I be the first to offer a cozy home to private collections that are refused on the basis of being a preservation burden? Steven Austin -----Original Message----- From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of George Brock-Nannestad Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 4:49 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [ARSCLIST] A scenario for bequests From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad In the mood of the scenario that I posted about earlier today (but which has not appeared as I write, because " ARSCLIST list is held") I am considering the following: Some private collections are donated to public collections, generating tax deductions in the process. It also generates work for valuers to find out what these deductions might be. However, if receiving a collection puts a burden on the receiving agency to digitize and maintain the collection, I would expect that the deduction should properly be converted into a supplementary tax burden on the donor. In other words, if the collection does not come with the money to preserve it, then it could potentially be refused. In a similar vein, the materials that could be privately inherited from a "modern" collector could potentially be a payment of, say, ten years of professional maintenance of the backup of the sounds he has collected. Such payments could also be put up for public auction (similar to works of art today). This message will self-destruct in 315,619,200 seconds. Inheritance sucks. Or it certainly will, at some point in our development. Kind regards, George __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250