Our history is at risk Indiana University Bloomington Media Preservation Initiative
The musical performances of Joshua Bell and Menachem Pressler … Audio interviews with Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles … Lectures by Mikhail Gorbachev, the Dalai Lama, and Bill Gates …
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ndiana University Bloomington is home to at least 3 million sound and moving image recordings, photos, documents, and artifacts. Well over half a million of these special holdings are part of audio, video, and film collections, and a large number of them are one of a kind. These invaluable cultural and historical gems, and many more, may soon be lost. Forever. A comprehensive, detailed survey conducted in 2009 revealed that nearly all of IU Bloomington’s audio and video media recordings are suffering the fate of similar media everywhere—most are deteriorating rapidly, many of them catastrophically, and nearly all of them are carried on formats that are now obsolete. For example, In the Archives of Traditional Music, rare collections of wax cylinders, including Native American music recorded by renowned photographer Edward S. Curtis from 1907 to 1913, are affected by serious chemical deterioration. Open reel tapes in the Lilly Library collection, among others, are beset by fungus, acetate degradation resulting in curling, and other damage. These tapes include interviews with Humphrey Bogart, Henry Fonda, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Judy Garland, James Dean, and many others. The Lilly Library collection also contains hundreds of recordings of Orson Welles radio shows on lacquer discs, which are chemically unstable and experiencing severe degradation. The Music Library holds audio and videotapes containing numerous premieres and performances, including a 1985 performance by violinist Joshua Bell to earn his IU Artist Diploma. These tapes are unstable, and the machines on which they can be played are no longer manufactured.
IU Bloomington’s vast audio, video, and film holdings are not only of wide cultural interest, but also have extremely high value as primary sources for scholarly research in fields such as anthropology, history, and music. IU Bloomington film holdings are among the largest and most diverse at any American university. But these irreplaceable parts of our cultural and intellectual heritage will certainly be lost without preservation. Now. While IU librarians and archivists are working diligently to save the campus’s holdings, the volume of endangered materials and the speed of their degradation make the task monumental. For example, Music Library staff calculate that it would take 120 years for the staff’s sole audio engineer to complete digitizing the library’s holdings of more than 195,500 recordings. Most experts believe there is a short 15 to 20 year window of opportunity to preserve audio and video media through digitization. After that, the combination of degradation and obsolescence, multiplied by the large numbers of holdings, will make digitization impossible. We have even less time to save some
formats, such as the lacquer discs that hold Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre radio shows. IU Bloomington has the expertise and experience to carry out first-rate media preservation. Faculty and staff on the Bloomington campus possess the needed vision, skills, and talents. The university’s information technology organization can provide state-of-the-art resources and infrastructure. No other university in the United States is organizing their media preservation efforts at the scale and level that Indiana University Bloomington is undertaking. No single campus unit, however, exists to handle the volume of media preservation required within the window of time available. The IU Bloomington campus needs to establish a home for media preservation and digitization that can serve as a crucial resource regionally and nationally. The creation of a center for media preservation efforts will enable the priceless collections at IU Bloomington to be saved according to international standards and best practices.
IMAGES AT LEFT: [clockwise from top] A 1941 lacquer disc recording held by the Lilly Library (photo by Mark Hood); His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama on a visit to IU Bloomington (photo courtesy IU); label from box of open reel tapes in the Lilly Library (photo by Patrick Feaster); IU Bloomington alumnus Joshua Bell in concert (photo courtesy IU). IMAGES AT RIGHT: [clockwise from top] Color 16mm film of a parade in Evansville, Ind., in the 1950s (photo by Alan Burdette); audio engineer Mark Hood reflected in a lacquer disc from the Harold Courlander recordings of tales and songs in Haitian Creole made in 1940. Despite being stored in climate-controlled conditions, the disc is unplayable due to delamination damage (photo by Alan Burdette). Tapes stored in a file cabinet at an IU Bloomington department (photo by Patrick Feaster).
Such a center would provide Audio preservation transfer Video preservation transfer Film conservation and digitization Digital files Secure file storage Training for students
IU Bloomington is poised to create a solution for the survival of its invaluable audio, video, and film media. A center for media preservation will not only save the incomparable collections at Indiana University for generations to come, but also will serve as a model for other institutions who face similar challenges in preserving our shared history.
“Even though [IU Bloomington's] needs are now documented, and it is far better equipped than most universities in the country to meet them, there is no guarantee that IU can adequately preserve its collections in the near future.� — The State of Recorded Sound Preservation in the United States, Council on Library and Information Resources for The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
INDIANA UNIVERSITY BLOOMINGTON
Media Preservation Survey
Download the Media Preservation survey at http://research.iub.edu/communications/ media_preservation/
“The careful and thorough design and scope of the IU [media preservation] study might serve as a model for other institutions. …The need for audio preservation is often articulated, but without surveys such as the one undertaken in Bloomington, the exact scope of the challenge will remain vague, efforts to address it will be scattered and uncoordinated, and important targets will be missed.” — The State of Recorded Sound Preservation in the United States, Council on Library and Information Resources for The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
IMAGE ON COVER: Ethnomusicologist Laura Boulton makes a wax cylinder recording of an Umbundu musician playing an olumbendo, a royal flute, in Dondi, Angola, 1931 (image from the Archives of Traditional Music, Laura Boulton collection).
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