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Karl, It seems you've addressing a few points here so I'll respond to each accordingly. 1) The subject of Audio Archeology: I don't believe there is a cohesive understanding of the state of our Recorded History and without this, it is difficult to determine the scope of the problem. In the business world, a key to understanding scope and solving problems is to apply metrics to a situation. For example, calculating what assets are lost or deteriorating, and what rate we are losing assets. This is obviously difficult, time consuming, and comes with a lot of variables like: -How are the loss of an intermediaries calculated? -How much deterioration is considered "deteriorating"? Most institutions do this internally with their assets, and once determined, the next step is reviewing the loses (or potential loses) and determining if they are sustainable (which means: do nothing); concerning (which means: develop a plan, without a guarantee of funding), or vital (which means: here's blank check, get it fixed) I can tell you that in most cases, vital is non-existent, which leaves sustainable, or concerning. Developing concerning into actual funding takes a well developed plan that is fiscally feasible. It's most likely that our Archeologist friends are better than we at developing cost effective plans to achieve their goal, which may be easier when justifying project costs against the collection of "priceless" artifacts. It is also very possible that we're comparing apples to oranges, as they most likely have very different funding sources. 2) The under appreciation/underpaying of Library and Archiving staff: The world today (more than ever) comes down to profitability. Since libraries don't make profits, it falls in line that there not going to be handling out high paying jobs working for a Library. High paying jobs can easily be had in the Finance, Legal, and Medical worlds. This has been true for years, but for librarians the cold hard facts haven't sunken in. Do I believe they should be paid more, of course I do. But do I think they ever will, not in my lifetime. The fact is that we have massive amounts of history from the 1900's in every field. Are we missing important stuff, sure we are. But the unfortunate fact is that not enough people care enough about what's missing. And more so, not enough profitability can be had from collecting what was lost, to make it a worthwhile endeavor. Think of it: That lost treasure of sound, that we thought the world would never hear again. Suddenly found, in pristine condition....How many downloads, CD's excetera could you possibly sell? Unless it the Beatles or Elvis it's most likely a lot LESS than you would think. 3) Metadata concerns: Here's the white elephant in the room. Everyone wants to preserve/transfer/digitize, but guess what??? If you don't have a complete and correct metadata standard in place, you'll probably do more harm then good. Once things are transferred, the value of storing the original drops (to the non archivist) and people assume that they'll never need to go back to it. That is until, we try to understand what the heck the file is, since your metadata seems spotty, and possibly incorrect. 4) Formatting/Migration issues: Yikes. This was hiding being the white elephant called metadata. And again, unless you figure this out UP FRONT, why bother digitizing? 5) And finally to address your last statement: I think the archiving world has it's blinders on, and needs to pull back, rationalize a bit, and find it's place in the modern world of business, technology, culture, and government. It's not effort or caring that this industry lacks; it's scope, direction and rational. Don Andes Director of Archives EMI Music -----Original Message----- From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Karl Miller Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2007 8:52 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Mass Digitization "Andes, Donald" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: ***The issue in my mind is scale because most in the archival industry are seeing a box, or room full of tapes, and have not had the opportunity to see over 1 million assets in a single location, nor contemplated what to do with them. ***If we (the archival industry) can't get a digitization schema to be cost effective, we simply won't get the funds to digitize. ***Worse, if someone outside the archival industry, gets "their" plans in motion, you can rest assure that it will not be done anywhere near correct. ***Unfortunately people don't change, and no matter how many positive reasons you give to migrate, those entrenched in analog will want to stay there. ***I believe there should be communal, parallel thinking in regards to mass digitization strategies, metadata collection and so forth. I am aware of library groups focusing specifically on metadata, but I have my own concern with their focus, and priorities in regards to collecting metadata on A/V assets. I appreciate the perspective you bring and I agree with most of what you write. The other day I was watching a program on the archaeological work at an early fort in the US. I noticed how many people were sifting through the layers of soil looking for fragments of pottery, arrowheads, and the like. I then thought of the estimates of analog audio in need of reformatting...by one estimate, 30Million hours. One can question if all that audio really should be reformatted, as the determination of what should survive can, even under the best of circumstances, be subjective. However, why is it that our society sees it appropriate to devote such substantive resources to archaeology while our recorded history crumbles on the shelf? My concerns are not necessarily limited to those outside of the archival arena. I can only reflect on what I observe at my own institution. We recently advertized for an opening for someone to do reformatting. They wanted an individual conversant in Final Cut Pro, Protools and older analog audio formats. The job was advertized at minimum wage...19 hours a week...at 19 hours a week, the University would not have to pay benefits like medical, etc. Also, at our institution, it was proposed that a unique collection of orchestral performances be digitized by work study employees. Obviously, even within the profession at my institution, there is little respect given to the skills required to do the work or what it costs to pay them. Then, what were the priorities for this project? The relatively stable mylar based reel to reel tapes were the priority. Lacquer discs were not even discussed as needing reformatting. As to the metadata concerns... I recenty read the document "Best Practice Guidelines for Digital Collections at the University of Maryland Libraries." For anyone sincerely concerned with these issues, I would recommend reading it. It is clearly a very well intentioned document, however, it seems to be have been written by those with no technical background. Their attempt to provide basic definitions is wrought with statements that I found so confusing, I was left with little sense of what they were trying to convey. It seems that we cannot even agree on definitions. And, with less than 4% of the total budgets of the ARL libraries devoted to preservation, I am left to wonder if our libraries place much significance to the preservation of our intellectual history. I am not encouraged much by what I read and observe. While those of us who value this history work hard at changing attitudes and priorities, I wonder how we might be able to do a better job at convincing those empowered to make changes to realign priorities. Maybe our strategy needs to focus not on the inside, but on the outside. In short, I wonder, who really does place value on our recorded history. Karl - -------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from EMI This e-mail including any attachments is confidential and may be legally privileged. If you have received it in error please advise the sender immediately by return email and then delete it from your system. The unauthorised use, distribution, copying or alteration of this email is strictly forbidden. If you need assistance please contact us on +44 20 7795 7000. This email is from a unit or subsidiary of EMI Group plc. Registered Office: 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5SW Registered in England No 229231. - --------------------------------------------------------------------