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National Recording Registry to Preserve Historical U.S. Sound Recordings

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on January 28, 2003 - 4:44am.
Washington, D.C. -- The U.S. Library of Congress has announced the first annual selection of recordings that will be placed in the newly created National Recording Registry. Fifty recordings that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" -- including Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, vintage music recordings of Louis Armstrong, Woody Guthrie, George Gershwin and Bill Monroe, and Franklin D. Roosevelt's "fireside chats" -- will be earmarked each year so that the original recordings on their original media are preserved for future generations. Digital versions of each recording will also be made available on the Library's website. The effort stems from the fact that many of the wax cylinders and other media on which these recordings were made are physically deteriorating and will be ruined if not properly preserved. "Much of CBS radio network is gone... Duke Ellington from Cotton Club... clarinetist Artie Shaw with Billie Holiday -- it's a very long and tragic list," Librarian of Congress James H. Billington told NPR. NPR also reported on the often complex and contentious copyright issues with music recordings that have prevented the Library of Congress from releasing many of the works in its archive of 2.6 million sound recordings to the public.
http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2003/03-014.html
http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_941847.html
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/20030127.atc.16.ram
http://www.loc.gov/rr/record
tags: U.S | National | Registry | Sound Recordings |



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