[ARSCLIST] why preserve

[Karl Miller <karl.miller@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

George Brock-Nannestad <pattac@xxxxxxxx> wrote:    Don wrote:

> Conditional - Is this an exceptionally fine example or is it 
  > impossible to playback because of damage?

***if you have a choice between two assets that were once identical it would appear simple to select the former only. However, that is not the whole story. The wear pattern on the latter will tell us a lot about its replay conditions, i.e. the apparatus avialable; the social class of the proprietor,etc.

I find myself thinking back to some of my earlier statements about pottery fragments of prior civilizations. Indeed, when it comes to audio, or much of what I see being digitized these days, I rarely think about the information contained in the actual artifact.
   
  Also, how important those studio outtakes are and what information they contain...no doubt most of us have heard that Sinatra session where he stumbles X number of times just to find his pitch during a slight modulation...or the 45 minutes of video I watched, totally mesmerized, as Glenn Gould worked over a few measures of Bach.
   
  Indeed, what will have meaning? I doubt we can ever know.
   
  So, what else figures into our criteria of what to preserve?
   
  Karl