Re: [ARSCLIST] Meta comment with new subject line.

["Steven C. Barr" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<original content NOT quoted...?!)

I see ARSCLIST as a functional extension of ARSC itself...and those
letters abbreviate "(The) Association Of Recorded Sound Collectors/
Collections"...! This includes everyone from myself (who owns about
54,000 78rpm phonorecords)...to the "Recorded Music Department Of
the Universal Library Of EVERYWHERE" which owns about eight
million sound recordings in various formats...!

Since SOME of the above-identified collections are maintained by
staff(s) of professionally-trained librarians (with graduate degrees in
"Library Science"...and others, like my own, are owned & maintained
by un-degreed parties who just enjoy "old records" and try to compile
data thereupon insofar as feasible, and thus DO NOT use any "official"
library-science-sainted formats for data storage...there is a "twain" here
which may NEVER meet!

IMHO, ARSC(LIST) should be (1) trying to establish an acceptable
"minimum-data" discographic data storage format (see under the
"Abrams Files," which DO have room for expansion...?!)...and (2)
trying to encourage its "official" (libraries, usw.) members to store
the data relevant to their physical phonorecord holdings!

Our eventual goal should be to establish, insofar as possible, a
digital database listing (at the VERY least) EVERY 78rpm
phonorecord ever issued! Once that task is accomplished, we
can move on...to include EVERY sound recording ever
commercially issued!

And "step III" would/should/could be a DIGITAL archive
containing ALL of the music included in the above group!!

With one-terabyte (and larger?) hard-disk drives regularly 
available...ALL of these projects are, or could be, accomplished!!

Let's say an adequate digital  representation of a 78rpm
phonorecord side requires 10 MEGAbytes (I may be wrong
big-time here...?!). This means that our 1TB disk drive can
hold 100,000 78rpm recording sides...!

If my estimate of there having been 3,500,000 (+/-) 78rpm
phonorecord having EVER been issued (probably a major
OVER-estimate...?!)...this means we shall require about
*70* such drives...or the expenditure of $14,000 or less...to
store this "ultimate archive" (I leave it up to our members
as far as LOCATING COPIES of all 3,500,000 78rpm
phonorecords...?!).

Note that a discographic-data archive would be significantly
smaller! Let's take an estimate of 2KB (12 times the size of a
typical "Abrams File" data record...?!) per phonorecord SIDE!
This, in turn, means we shall require 3,5000,000 (number of
issued 78rpm phonorecords) *2 (the number of sides on virtually
all 78rpm phonorecords)...or some 7,000,000 data records total!

Now, we take 2,000 bytes per single-side data record...and multiply
THAT by the 7,000,000 estimated sides (7 megasides?!)...and we
get about 14 gigabates of total data (this means our 1TB drive STILL
has 986GB of available space?!).

Point here being...
(1) YES, this project is theoretically possible!!
(2) And yes, even if we extend it to the once-promoted project of
storing a digital sound file of EVERY...well, it is STILL technically
possible!!
(3) So, WHY are we still mucking about...EH?!?!

Steven C. Barr
(whose goal is a copy of EVERY 78 in existence...but, having certain
space limitations defined by income limitations, will happily settle for
the relevant discographic data (format TBA) on that selfsame set!!)