I've Been Thinking...

I've been thinking that I should get together a poster session or something on what I've been doing on the audio digitization process at CUA for the SAA poster presentations. I mean, what I'm doing isn't new--there are plenty of music libraries and archives that have had audio preservation and digitization programs running for a while--but what I'm doing is unique in that it's basically designing and running the program. I've made necessary connections at the university and in the field who are my technical consultants, I'm using students to do processing, and my bosses have to approve of the program I'm implementing, but it's basically me.

That's pretty freaking awesome, and a notable innovation. Fully utilizing modern technologies (in creative ways) has allowed me to create this program from nearly nothing. Other than the expense of the computer (which needed updating anyway), the expense of iLogic Express (software), and the expense of one book, I've accomplished what I've done so far using free resources and my connections. The audio equipment I'm using was all located at the university, and also free. Soon, I will be asking about $500 for a mixer and analog to digital converter so I can have a professional audio setup so multiple formats can be digitized in-house. I attended a CCAHA workshop on a/v digitization in October and was given the estimate of $50,000 for an audio digitization program, with several people working towards establishing it. By the end of setting this up, I hope to have had the Archives spend less than $3,000. I bring in more money a year for photo digitization requests.

If I can get a poster presentation together, archivists will know how easy establishing an audio program is. SAA needs support all record types.

SAA Fail!

So, during my frustration today I decided to check out resources available through my professional organizations, namely SAA and ARSC. ARSC has been the primary source of all my resources for audio preservation, and I was stunned when I realized that on the list of archive and archive-related organizations available on the SAA website, ARSC and IASA aren't even mentioned! The two largest audio-related professional associations aren't mentioned! No wonder SAA doesn't offer much guidance with audio preservation and digitization! They don't know what's out there! SAA fail!

(ARSC mentions SAA on their website...)