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The weekly Scout Report has come out of Madison, Wisconsin for a very long time. In the old days it was useful in providing links to new websites of varied interests. Now it performs a kind of triage function, kind of like an NPR. Today's, reproduced below, will give an idea of what the outside world thinks of 'old recordings.' L. Hunter Kevil In the News *Old recordings allow researchers and public to hear the voices of the past* We Had No Idea What Alexander Graham Bell Sounded Like. Until Now http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/We-Had-No-Idea-What-Alexander-Graham-Bell-Sounded-Like-Until-Now-204137471.html Playing the Unplayable Records http://www.smithsonianmag.com/multimedia/videos/Playing-the-Unplayable-Records.html Curators discover first recordings of Christmas Day http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20772246 Listen as Albert Einstein Reads 'The Common Language of Science' (1941) http://www.openculture.com/2013/03/listen_as_albert_einstein_reads_the_common_language_of_science_1941.html<http://www.openculture.com/2013/03/listen_as_albert_einstein_reads_the_common_language%0d%0a%20_of_science_1941.html> Extracting Audio from Pictures http://mediapreservation.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/extracting-audio-from-pictures/ The Library of Congress Recorded Sound Reference Center Online http://www.loc.gov/rr/record/onlinecollections.html Photography has been around for a long time, and portraiture even longer. Some written sources date back millennia. We gather a great deal of information through analysis of artifacts, skeletons, and very old trash. In these ways, we have a good idea of what our ancestors looked like, what they thought about, how they lived, and even what they ate. However, the sounds of their voices have long been lost. To re medy this gap in our knowledge somewhat, researchers have be! en worki ng on a variety of ways to hear recordings previously thought unplayable. These early recordings, many of which survive on delicate wax discs or only in photographs, were often designed for unknown playback mechanisms, or are too fragile to stand up to the rigors of being played. Nevertheless, there have been recent breakthroughs, including those by physicist Carl Haber and colleagues, who scanned very old recordings and converted them into computer audio files. These have allowed us to hear a variety of voices from times past, including for the first time the renowned Alexander Graham Bell. [CM]<#ReportVerso>