[AV Media Matters] long-term preservation of audio recordings

[Jimrem@aol.com]

[Note:  I submitted this mesage last night, but on reading it at the office
with Net Mail I notice the quote which I enclosed within the AOL style quotes
had disappeared, so I am resubmitting it with plain quotes.]

I have much the same questions as those posted by Scott Campbell recently.

He wrote, "I am not a trained audio technician, but have studied and read a
bit in the field for the last few years to help me manage my organization's
archival audio collection. In our archives, we have over 12,000 hours of
original audio cassette recordings. Some date back to 1971. We consider these
recordings to be priceless, as well as irreplaceble. I am charged with
preserving them for perpetuity--literally."

I too am not a trained audio technician, but I am in charge of the Lenape
(Delaware Indian) Language Project.  We have many hundreds of hours of
recordings of the language.  Most are on cassette tapes, a few are
reel-to-reel.  We also have some recordings on videotape, some VHS and some
S-VHS.  These too are priceless and irreplaceable, especially since we have
very few speakers of the language left.

I have spoken with several people in the A-V departments at different
universities, and they all recommend copying them to some type of archival
medium.  The problem is that I get a different opinion from each person I
speak with.  Most seem to agree that some digital format would be best.

I look forward to whatever suggestions that anyone in this field can give.

Jim Rementer, director
Lenape Language Project