OCLC/Safe Sound Archive Partnership

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OCLC/Safe Sound Archive Partnership
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ALA 2005 Midwinter Announcement
We would like to announce the formation of a
partnership between Safe Sound Archive and OCLC
to provide cost-effective services to audio
collections, including digital reformatting,
archiving and improved access through Open
WorldCat. Using our combined expertise, this
partnership will allow for a convenient,
integrated solution through either OCLC or Safe
Sound Archive.
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The OCLC/Safe Sound Archive Partnership can
assist in virtually all stages of collections
care management
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Located in Philadelphia
Visitors Welcome!
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Services

• Archival Storage

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Archival Storage
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Services

• Archival Storage
• Conservation

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Conservation
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Services

• Archival Storage
• Conservation
• Preservation/Digitization

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Preservation/Digitization
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Services

• Archival Storage
• Conservation
• Preservation/Digitization
• Restoration

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Restoration

• Remove Hum
• Reduce Hiss
• Improve intelligibility
• Improve compression for Web delivery
• Remaster for commercial release

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Services

• Archival Storage
• Conservation
• Preservation/Digitization
• Restoration
• Consulting

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Consulting

• Project Design
• RfP Writing
• Preservation Studio Design Equipping
• Preservation Assessments

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How the partnership serves you

• One-stop shopping
• Better integration
• Blind to user
• Rethinking the approach to preservation

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Collections-oriented PreservationDigitization
Processing
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Collections of different media
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Old Selection Criteria
Media are separated from related
materials Discontinuity in collections processing
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New Selection Criteria
Organizes work around the collection Creates
continuity for how all materials within
collection are handled
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Sound Collections Assessment/Triage

• Every situation is different
• Curatorial Prioritization
• Preservation Assessment Report
• Use Access
• Is used?
• Would be used?
• Obsolescence
• Deterioration
• Scale
• Existing Plan/Criteria (or lack thereof)

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Sound Collections Assessment/Triage

• Every situation is different
• Curatorial Prioritization
• Preservation Assessment Report
• Use Access
• Is used?
• Would be used?
• Obsolescence
• Deterioration
• Scale
• Existing Plan/Criteria (or lack thereof)

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Arm Yourself with Information! Whats on the CD

• Mixed-Mode CD, with both CD-Audio portion and
  -ROM section with files.
• Materials from Saving Sound Session
• - PowerPoint presentation
• - Full Text document of oral presentation
• - Charles Kolbs outline
• -.pdfs of Alan Lewis handouts
• -Sarah Staudermans PowerPoint
• Planning, Standards
• - Planning an Audio Preservation Transfer
  Project
• - Collection of Standards compiled by David
  Seubert
• - 2 CLIR Papers
• - Papers on disaster planning and recovery by
  Steve Smolian and Peter Brothers
• Other Resources
• - Library of Congress Disc Cleaning Solution
  formula
• - Collection of URLs
• - Bibliography
• Audio Samples
• - Examples of a 78 rpm played with different
  stylus sizes

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Sound Collections Assessment/Triage

• Every situation is different
• Curatorial Prioritization
• Preservation Assessment Report
• Use Access
• Is used?
• Would be used?
• Obsolescence
• Deterioration
• Scale
• Existing Plan/Criteria (or lack thereof)

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Sound Collections Assessment/Triage

• Every situation is different
• Curatorial Prioritization
• Preservation Assessment Report
• Use Access
• Is used?
• Would be used?
• Obsolescence
• Deterioration
• Scale
• Existing Plan/Criteria (or lack thereof)

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Obsolescence

• If you dont know what it is, finding a machine
  to play it on will probably present a challenge

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Obsolescence

• Quality equipment is rapidly becoming very
  difficult to acquire
• Our recent search for top-of-the-line, highest
  quality 1/4 reel-to-reel machines took 9 months
  (and were still looking for parts for one
  machine)

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Deterioration

• Where the curator and the vendor meet
• First, do not harm
• In-house assessment can identify issues
• Sound preservation is more like paper
  conservation than image scanning
• Vendor will have volumes of experience
• During 2006 Safe Sound Archive will process 5,000
  hours of sound recordings

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In-house Curatorial Assessment

• Some problems are obvious
  Victims of
• bad storage conditions

Victims of poor handling
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In-house Curatorial Assessment

• Tricks of the trade

Acetate is translucent Polyester (Mylar) is opaque
Tape on the left is sticky. Tape should flow off
reel freely, such as on right
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Safe Sound ArchivesExpertise with Analog Media

• 14 1/4 Reel-to-reel Machines
• All Speeds
• 15/16, 1 7/8, 3 3/4, 7 1/5, 15, 30 ips 50
• All Sizes
• 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10.5, 12, 14
• All Equalizations
• NAB, CCIR, AES
• All Track Formats
• Full-Track Mono
• 1/2-track (NAB CCIR)
• 1/4-track
• Experience to custom-modify as needed

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Safe Sound ArchivesExpertise with Analog Media

• Broadcast direct-drive turntables
• All Speeds
• 33, 45, 70.29-80 ips 10
• All Sizes
• 5, 7, 10, 12, 16
• All Equalizations
• NAB, RIAA, AES, non-standard
• All Groove Formats
• Mono, Stereo, L/R, LR, L-R
• All Groove Sizes
• from microgroove to 10.0 mil
• Center, Edge, or Reverse Play

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Questions?

• George Blood
• Safe Sound Archive
• georgeblood_at_safesoundarchive.com
• [phone]
• www.safesoundarchive.com

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Standards Best Practices

• Standards Out of Date
• Call for analog tape
• EBU has standard
• Best Practices Abound
• Whats best for your institution situation

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Preservation Set

• Preservation Master
• Use Access Copy
• Web-Accessible Copy

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Preservation Master

• Key Traits
• Rarely accessed
• Most important to manage
• Typically 96kHz/24bit
• .WAV or .BWF
• wave or broadcast wave
• Rarely, though sometimes still 1/4 analog

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Preservation Master

• Key Advantages
• Widely used
• Higher resolution than 99 of sources
• Better than most playback chains
• Derivatives easily created
• EBU standard

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Preservation Master

• Key Difficulties
• No standard storage medium
• Data tapes expensive to maintain
• Too big for CD-ROM
• On-line storage requires ongoing maintenance
• Internet delivery impractical
• 5x play time for T1 .ftp

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Preservation Master

• Typical Solution
• 96/24 on hard drive to digital library
• Enterprise-level storage
• 96/24 on DVD-ROM
• Can be migrated easily to HDD when available
• Do something else
• Gold CD-R
• CD-ROM

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Use Access Copy

• Key Traits (and Advantages!)
• Readily accessible
• User-friendly format
• Good enough to substitute if Preservation Master
  is lost
• Nearly always CD-Audio

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Use Access Copy

• Key Difficulties (CD-Audio vs. CD-ROM)
• CD-DA (digital audio)
• Pure serial-read (cant re-read to correct
  errors, even transient errors)
• CD-ROM (digital audio as data)
• Sector-based, so can re-read (more reliable)
• Requires computers (software, OS, etc.) to
  retrieve
• CD-DA more widely playable
• CD-ROM more reliably played

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Use Access Copy

• Typical Solutions (depend somewhat on
  Preservation Master)
• CD-DA for near-universal playability
• Multiple copies
• CD-DA, one copy on gold, one on green
• CD-ROM (gold?) and CD-DA (green)
• Gold CD-R for Preservation Master, Green for UA

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Web-Accessible Copy

• Depends on Rights
• RA ACC more secure than mp3 or WMA
• Depends on Needs
• Too restricted to put on-line
• Beyond institutional abilities or needs
• Perhaps as-needed only

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Questions?

• George Blood
• Safe Sound Archive
• georgeblood_at_safesoundarchive.com
• [phone]
• www.safesoundarchive.com