Re: Sound Archiving and transfers of 78s

[Sapoznik <Sapoznik...>]

The assertion that long term archival transfers should be made onto DAT of
RCDs, is wrong. No top drawer professional sound archives supports this idea
(Library of Congress, Smithsonian Instituion, NY Public Library at Lincoln
Center, etc.) The long term shelf life of RCDs and DATs is still unknown
wheras, 10" open reel tape recorded at 15-30 ips still has the destinction of
offering quality playback after 10 years of comparatively normative storage
(heat and humidity controlled). RCDs and DATs are fine, however, for shelf
copies which are used regularly . The idea is to limit the number of times a
recording is retransfered. 
It's possible that in a few years after shelf life studies have been completed
by such orgnizations as AES (Audio Engineering Society) and ARSC (Association
of Recorded Sound Collections, of which I'm a long time member) the format
switch will go to the new digital formats, but until then the real pros will
watch, wait and listen.
 As to archives of Jewish recordings, since its founding, Living Traditions
has been collecting and archiving Yiddish 78s continuing the work I started as
the director of the YIVO sound archives back in 1982. Having issued our first
CD "Di Grine Katshke" we are looking ahead to reissue 78 anthologies on a par
with my earlier releases like "Mysteries of the Sabbath" (cantorial), "Dave
Tarras: Yiddish-American Klezmer Music" (klezmer and Yiddish theater) and
"Naftule Brandwein: King of the Klezmer Clarinet".
People who are looking for a dependable open access sound archives are invited
to consult with us. 
On that score, the best person in New York doing high quality archival
transfers of 78s and other antique recording formats is Andy Lanset 430 W.
14th Street #308 New York City (alanset (at) aol(dot)com).

A gite vokh,

Henry Sapoznik