Re: [ARSCLIST] National Recording Registry

[stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Lewis" <davlew@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> It is a hard reality for an archivist to swallow is that
> to most citizens in this fair country, the music and information
> recorded before the 1960s really "doesn't matter".
1) Agreed! (sadly)
2) Still and all, shouldn't the "information" be more appropriately
in an "Events Registry?" Keep in mind that virtually anything that
was a subject for broadcast from the late 1940's on...and certainly
telecast from c.1960...was recorded, somewhere and by someone.
In this sense, would a shorthand transcription of the Gettysburg
Address, taken down on scene at the time (which is a "recording"
in the technical sense when you consider it) not qualify?

I might add that, in my opinion (as a "layman") the object should
be to identify the commercial sound recordings that, over previous
years/decades/centuries, had the most effect on either/both popular
"life" and/or on the evolution and development of music. Beyond that,
the registry becomes a list of the "fifty greatest/most influential events
which just happened to be recorded at the time" mixed with the
list I suggest here...
...stevenc