Re: [ARSCLIST] Triage, heroic efforts, and economics

[Karl Miller <lyaa071@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 23 May 2006, Richard L. Hess wrote:

> It depends - perhaps the best thing would be to set up an archival
> store of multiple tens or a hundred TB (or expandable to that) plus
> an annuity to pay for the ongoing support plus an annuity to pay for
> incremental digitization.

Is your idea something of notion of a universal audio library? What could
be stored there, commercial, non commercial... who could have access, etc.

Would something like this be of interest to the recording industry? It
would seem to me that such a storehouse need not reside in one location,
but be duplicated in different parts of the country. Every recording
deposited would need to be accompanied by some cataloging information,
ownership information, duration of that ownership, etc. Instead of just
placing the recording on deposit, it could serve as not only copyright
registration but monitoring of ownership...am I getting too far out with
this idea...

If the industry saw this as beneficial, perhaps the "registration charge"
could pay for the preservation of non-commercial recordings?

It would seem that a good business model would attract donors. In my
personal experience, many donors make their money in business and when
presenting to them a proposal, having the ability to demonstrate some cost
recovery is a significant plus. The way it is now, we ask them for money,
we spend it, and then we ask them for money again.

A few weeks ago I was talking to one of our local arts donors who gave
$20M for a performing arts center. I asked him what his thinking was,
other than the obvious of wanting to help the arts. He pointed to the
notion that a building will be there once the money is spent...not like
funding an opera production...production staged...money gone.

As for my own thoughts, perhaps an endowment to fund an instructional
program in audio preservation and restoration. Also, a foundation that would award
grants...not as we have it now...to fund individual preservation projects,
but to fund startup money to encourage libraries and archives to develop
infrastructure to create their own audio preservation programs.

In short, what are the problems we face and how can we combine our
efforts, avoid duplication of effort, and what would we like to
accomplish?

Needless to say Richard, your idea has given me a great deal to think
about.

Karl