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In response to DDR's set up, which I know was intended tended at least half-humorously, I did wish to say something. The decline of interest in OTR -- and Dr. B may dismiss these proposed reasons and offer others, as is his wont, and right -- derives from numerous factors that worked against it: the concentration of the legacy into too few hands with botiuqey/gifty business models, the drying up of conventional radio outlets still delivering the goods, the aging/dying off of the original audience that remembered it from when there was no TV, the enthusiasts' interest in too few of the genres represented by OTR, etc. It came to a point where the OTR universe was contracting, rather than expanding, and once that plateau is reached it becomes like a white dwarf, a tiny former star with all of the material packed inside it, growing ever denser and dimmer. By virtue of its mandate, ARSC is busier and more badly needed than ever before. The manifold DRM issues, the recent and unprecedented truly serious and scholarly investigation into pre-1917 recordings outside of opera, the controversy of what constitutes jazz and what that has stirred up, activating interest in a whole range of little appreciated dance band recordings, the rapidly decaying formats of recent times and the neglect from scholars of relatively recent eras. The failure of "new musicology" and the lassitude of musicologists more concerned with accruing tenure -- which is getting away from them anyway -- than with developing a true understanding of developments in music of recent eras. And so forth, and so forth .... Jeez. We can't cure all of these issues, but they all prevent some kind of challenge, and we find ourselves of finding ourselves having somewhat whiter hats than the white hats who ought to have the job of evaluating or taking care of these things. And I admit I expanded our definition beyond what we do, but all of this affects us in some way. The universe is clearly expanding, not contracting, for ARSC. It is all our little organization can do to keep up with new developments, and much of the relevant news I hear either comes through this list or its members. I'm not happy to see the OTR people disband, and another thing we might have to consider is how to deal with OTR related issues now that there is no more OTR organization to centralize thinking about it, access and to respond to what level of enthusiasm there is about it. It never ends. Uncle Dave Lewis Lebanon, OH On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 11:09 AM, Dennis Rooney <[log in to unmask]>wrote: > All who fear ARSC as we know it self-extinguishing must read this. > > DDR > >