Lecture on capturing recorded sound through imaging

Carl Haber
Capturing Recorded Sound through Imaging: The I.R.E.N.E. Project and
    Future Prospects
Library of Congress
Mumford Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison Building
101 Independence Ave. SE
Washington DC
Monday, June 18, 2007
10-am to noon,

The Library of Congress, in an effort to preserve its collections of
recorded sound, is now evaluating a prototype device to extract
sound from phonograph records through digital imaging.

Scientist Carl Haber will discuss this project, referred to as
I.R.E.N.E. (Image, Reconstruct, Erase Noise, etc.),

The lecture, titled "Capturing Recorded Sound through Imaging: The
I.R.E.N.E. Project and Future Prospects", is free and open to the
public; tickets and reservations are not required.

Four years ago, the Preservation Directorate of the Library of
Congress initiated research collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory (LBNL) to study the application of digital
imaging to the extraction of sound from phonograph records and other
grooved media <URL:http://irene.lbl.gov>.  This non-invasive
approach protects delicate or damaged historical items, and offers a
direction toward large-scale digitization of recorded sound
collections.

Haber, senior scientist at LBNL, will discuss the status of the
I.R.E.N.E. project, as well as plans to develop a second device for
high-resolution, three-dimensional surface profiling of grooved
media, such as wax cylinders.

According to Dianne van der Reyden, director for Preservation at the
Library of Congress

   "This project represents a successful partnership between the
    Library and the scientific research community. The ability to
    capture sound from otherwise unplayable broken or damaged discs,
    and to do so in near real time, is remarkable.  We look forward
    to working with LBNL on research and development for the next
    iteration to capture sound from similarly at-risk 3D audio media
    such as wax cylinders"

I.R.E.N.E. is a system that rapidly makes a digital image of a disc
record.  It can efficiently extract sound from an image of a fragile
or damaged disc, "heal" scratches or digitally "reassemble" a broken
phonograph record.  The extracted sound is converted to standard
digital files and stored for purposes of digital access and
preservation.

Recent surveys of collections nationwide, such as the Heritage
Health Index, have highlighted the acute need for large-scale
preservation efforts.  Millions of historical recordings are
believed to be in need of preservation.

I.R.E.N.E. research has been supported by the Library of Congress,
the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Archives and
Records Administration, the Department of Energy, the University of
California, the Andrew P. Mellon Foundation and the John Simon
Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation's oldest
federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world,
with more than 134 million items in various languages, disciplines
and formats.  The Library's Preservation Directorate is the oldest
and largest library preservation facility in the nation.  The
Directorate's mission is to ensure long-term, uninterrupted access
to the Library's collections, either in original or reformatted
form.  The Directorate's Research and Testing Division is the
premier preservation R&D lab in the nation. It focuses on solving
preservation problems facing collections of all types, whether
traditional, audiovisual or digital.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory <URL:http://www.lbl.gov>
is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory and is
located in Berkeley, Calif.  It conducts unclassified scientific
research and is managed by the University of California.


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 21:10
                  Distributed: Tuesday, June 12, 2007
                       Message Id: cdl-21-10-007
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