April 17, 2006
A Hundred Years
Give or take. The University of California, Santa Barbara, has a web site which includes digitizations of over 6,000 "Edison" cylinders. The oldest I heard was released in 1902.
The Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project is well worth a peek -- and a listen. We read books and see photographs that are older, but there is something moving in hearing audio that is that old.
Cylinder recordings, the first commercially produced sound recordings, are a snapshot of musical and popular culture in the decades around the turn of the 20th century. They have long held the fascination of collectors and have presented challenges for playback and preservation by archives and collectors alike.With funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the UCSB Libraries have created a digital collection of over 6,000 cylinder recordings held by the Department of Special Collections. In an effort to bring these recordings to a wider audience, they can be freely downloaded or streamed online.
Way cool. Hat-tip: Pajamas Media On the web Posted by jk at April 17, 2006 6:27 PM
Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services??? Federal funding??? You mean they're spending OUR money digitizing one hundred year old cylinder recordings? They should cut funding on this immediately, or at least roll it back to 80%.
Actually, I think it sounds like a pretty worthwhile project. It's just that I was momentarily shocked that anything worthwhile could be funded by the government.
Posted by: LatteSipper at April 18, 2006 11:00 AMI would rather it were funded privately, but that does not mean that it is not cool. I would rather the government didn't print our money, but I still like it.
Posted by: jk at April 18, 2006 12:53 PM | What do you think? [2]