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Sound Directions Report on Audio
Preservation
I want to share this announcement with the CNI-announce
readership. I had the wonderful opportunity to be part of the advisory
committee for this project, and I think that this report will be very
helpful for institutions dealing with audio preservation challenges.
It's very pragmatically oriented and informed by a wealth of practical
experience at the authoring institutions.
Clifford Lynch
Director, CNI
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The Sound Directions project
at Harvard University and Indiana University announces the publication
of Sound Directions: Best Practices for Audio Preservation,
which is available as a PDF from www.dlib.indiana.edu/projects/sounddirections/. This 168-page publication presents
the results of two years of research and development funded by the
National Endowment for the Humanities in the United States. This work
was carried out by project and permanent staff at both institutions in
consultation with an advisory board of experts in audio engineering,
audio preservation, and digital libraries.
Sound Directions: Best Practices
for Audio Preservation establishes best practices in many areas
where they did not previously exist. This work also explores the
testing and use of existing and emerging standards. It includes
chapters on personnel and equipment for preservation transfer, digital
files, metadata, storage, preservation packages and interchange, and
audio preservation systems and workflows. Each chapter is divided into
two major parts: a preservation overview that summarizes key concepts
for collection managers and curators, followed by a section that
presents recommended technical practices for audio engineers, digital
librarians, and other technical staff. This latter section includes a
detailed look at the inner workings of the audio preservation systems
at both Harvard and Indiana.
This first phase of the Sound
Directions project produced four key results: the publication of
our findings and best practices, the development of much needed
software tools for audio preservation, the creation or further
development of audio preservation systems at each institution, and the
preservation of a large number of critically endangered and highly
valuable recordings. All of these are detailed in this publication,
which provides solid grounding for institutions pursuing audio
preservation either in-house or in collaboration with an outside
vendor.
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