[ARSCLIST] Project Gramophone (was Re: Certification)

[Jon Noring <jon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steven C. Barr wrote:

> Two comments:
>
> 1) This will have to be mounted in some type of mobile platform, which
> enables it to travel to various sites. few institutions and even fewer
> private collectors will have, or be able to afford for that matter, a
> state-of-the-art playback system such as described above...so, when one
> is assembled, it probably should be able to travel where the disc archives
> are, if only due to the problems involved in moving 78's by the thousands!

Mobile is being discussed, although maybe in the first stage we will
set up a fixed facility, to shake the bugs out of the system and begin
planning the mobile facility(ies) as the next stage. We are thinking
of setting up in Canada first because of the 50 year sound recording
copyright term there. Our thoughts are to focus first on the pre-WWII
"electrical" era, from the 1920's to 1942, with an emphasis on the
depression years because of the general rarity of the depression era
records. But focus is not the same as exclusive, and we'll certainly
do much older discs when they come our way. We'll have *so many* discs
available to us from all eras and types of music, that we have the
luxury of focusing, at least initially. This is intended to be a
multi-decade project, so we'll get to it all eventually.

(Additionally, to aid the start of the project, my observation is that
the general public tends to prefer late 1920's/30's jazz, dance band,
country, blues, personality, etc., over the older acoustic stuff, and
getting the public excited about the online collection is an important
component to build momentum for the long-term project.)

Both the Grey Gull family and Edison are of especial interest because of
friendly "ownership" or "non-ownership" (in a legal sense -- Grey Gull
may truly be orphaned in the US since the masters appear to be long-gone
-- but I'd love to work with the family of Theodore Lyman Shaw.) I assume
the group which is overseeing the Edison recordings for the U.S. National
Park Service is doing their job and properly digitizing the Edison Diamond
Disk (and lateral/LP/cylinder) catalog (but if not, we could help out.) I
think our approach will help to finally sort out the mess that is known as
Grey Gull in that we'd collect both transfers and label images/data which
can be cross-correlated much more easily (including by online listening
tests), and by a larger group of researchers working collaboratively. The
difficulty in doing label research is to have both the labels and sound
recordings available in one place -- the Internet now allows this.


> 2) When transcription of data becomes necessary (discographic, not sound),
> it will be necessary to use knowledgeable individuals to do so. This was
> the notable flaw in the RDI project...the use of untrained data entry
> personnel meant that data was often entered in incorrect fields, and, as
> well, typos and similar errors were not obvious to the party entering
> the data and thus not caught at the time!

There are two sets of data:

1) Label data. The data found on the label will be entered into a
   database of some sort. However, it is true that errors will crop up
   from data entry. These errors are minimized by properly training
   the staff entering the data (hopefully we'll have motivated volunteer,
   experienced record collectors helping out), and by designing some
   intelligence into the data entry application to error check the
   entered values.

   Nevertheless, it is vitally important to take a scan/photograph of
   the actual label and run-out area (use the right lighting to bring
   out whatever is pressed into the run-out area) and associate that
   with the metadata for later checking. The label scans should be
   viewable online along with the raw transfers.

2) Performance/recording data. Of course, this has to come from
   standard discographical sources. The database will include entry of
   this data when entering in label data. It is important to include
   the source of the data, and even enter in conflicting data from
   multiple sources (the database will keep track of the conflicting
   data with authority information -- there's no need for us to try to
   decide which authority is more "authoritative" so long as the
   authority is well-regarded enough -- include both, and let future
   researchers sort out the discrepencies. Having both raw transfers
   and the label scans is almost as good as having the record in hand.)


I'm getting closer to formally putting together a Steering Committee
to finalize the Planning for Project Gramophone, along with governance
and funding issues. I've talked to a few of you about this already,
but if we've not talked, and you are interested in participating in
the Steering Committee, please reply to me at jon@xxxxxxxxxxx . I am
especially looking for experienced sound collection archivists, avid
78 record collectors, those who do professional transfers and sound
restoration, musicologists, etc. It is hoped PrGram will work closely
with established sound collection archives, to formalize the standards
for digitizing sound recordings. It is hoped that everyone digitizing
their own sound collections does it at the highest and most consistent
quality so the merger of the digital transfers and associated metadata
from the activities of various archives will be seamless.

Jon Noring
Project Gramophone