Re: [ARSCLIST] Disaster Recovery-LPs. Part 2

[David Lennick <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This reminds me..a couple of months ago I purchased a couple of thousand 78s and LPs from Hobart-William Smith College in Geneva NY (I think Steve will be familiar with some of this collection, having assessed part of it). Many of the spoken word LPs had a foggy surface, even though the discs appeared unplayed and some of the sign-out cards looked unused.
These albums were in heavy plastic jackets and I wonder if they were responsible for trapping moisture and pollutants over a 40-year period?

dl

Steven Smolian wrote:

> Additional thoughts.
>
> LPs exposed too long to moisture become pimply.  The stylus reads the pimples which, given the physics of record playback, are actually added noise.  The generation of potential users who have grown up on noisless CDs resist using even relatively undamaged LPs.
>
> It is comforting to restore the records as physical objects and have them back in their assigned place on the shelf.  But, once user-sampled, there is enormous resistance to using them again.  It's a waste to apply resources to damaged LPs so they can become shelf zombies- appearing as if they are fully useful until they encounter the playback stylus.
>
> Steve Smolian