Re: [ARSCLIST] Disposition of those bluegrass tapes

[John Ross <johnross@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

At  6/27/2006 02:07 PM, Mike Richter wrote:
> Interestingly, no one addressed the broader question: How does one 
> who is not involved with ARSC find a repository for such material?

This is a growing for many communities. I've been calling it the 
"tapes in the basement problem." Here in Seattle, we have identified 
at least half a dozen separate substantial collections of folk music 
tapes that are sitting in various attics and basements, in need of 
both preservation and cataloging. Some are concerts or field 
recordings, but others are probably just dubs of some friends' record 
collections. Without a detailed survey, there's no way to know 
exactly what we have. And of course, there is no easy way to figure 
out who owns what rights -- performance, recording and composition -- 
to most of this stuff.

I'm sure there are plenty of other collections of jazz, classical 
music, radio transcriptions and oral history tapes facing the same problems.

It seems like there ought to be a local or regional institution who 
could take this stuff, but without a) staff, b) proper equipment and 
space to preserve the originals and make digital copies, and c) money 
to pay for a) and b), the tapes would just end up in some storage 
warehouse waiting for somebody to "do something with them."

John Ross