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Re: collection of 78RPM records to be donated



Roy,

I would try to advise you to find some tactful way of telling the would-be
donor that it would be more beneficial over all to donate the recordings to
a charity tag sale. Many libraries are willing to sell LPs and 78 at their
fundraisers along side books and old magazines.

I give this advice from my experience a few years back (about 4, to be more
exact) as a librarian in the recorded sound and video collection here and
the Performing Arts Library. We had one or two patrons a week on average
coming in or calling with just such a proposal. Nearly 100% of the time,
the claimed that they were "really unusual stuff, like old Caruso
recordings" and so on. It is hard to explain the reality that Caruso
recordings were available by the hundreds of thousands (I am tempted to say
millions, but I don't have time to look the exact numbers up now) and have
never gone out of print, even as formats have succeeded one another. There
is always the possibility that one or two rarities are lurking in the
popular music (did the donor say how "big" the collection. Some people
consider 200-300 items a lot, but there are even private collections that
number in the six figures and major sound archives this size and larger are
not at all uncommon).

A personal example: My father-in-law, when he became aware of his terminal
illness, decided to dispose of most of his personal memorabilia, etc. while
he was still around to do it himself. At the time I was working at the
Institute of Jazz Studies, so he asked me to see if they could use his jazz
78s collected in the late 1930's. The Institute keeps three copies of
items, to provide backup of their material and I found that, of all the 78s
in his collection (a few hundred, I can't remember the number precisely)
there was only one that the Institute did not already own in triplicate.
These 78s that my father-in-law had held onto covered a wide range of jazz
styles and labels and many of the artists would be considered obscure if
one consults the various major discographies.

There are many other institutions around preserving similar material and I
am pretty sure that the story would be more or less the same at all of
them. The fact that these are almost always commercially available and
mass-produced items, puts them somewhat out of the realm of straight-ahead
archives (Ironically, most recording companies would be unable to duplicate
these collections when it comes to having their own recordings archived)
and most libraries are struggling to make their recorded sound collections
more accessible to patrons, something that is more easily served by using
contemporary formats of delivery (CD, digital files and, to a lesser
degree, tape).

With an itemized list, the patron might be able to stir up some interest.
If someone has information about some institution looking for this sort of
material that is willing to accept whatever is sent to them, I would like
to know (and most librarian that I know who deal with recordings); I
personally have many recordings that I have duplicated on more modern
formats and would love to clear the shelves of these fragile old items. I
just don't want to send them somewhere where they will be trashed
(literally) and that is the fate of the vast majority of the records that
were carefully saved and then found in your grandfather's attic once they
are entrusted to an institution or second-hand dealer.

Sorry that this is not more encouraging, but my experience has forced me to
face this issue repeatedly,

Peter Hirsch
Cataloger
phirsch@nypl.org
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
40 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, New York  10023
(212) 870-1728

<Date:    Mon, 3 Jun 2002 09:09:57 -0700
<From:    Roy Webb <rwebb@LIBRARY.UTAH.EDU>
<Subject: collection of 78RPM records to be donated
<
<A former alum of the University has offered us a big collection of 78
<RPM records, including some almost 100 years old, that he says
<are in good condition.  However, it's just not something we could do
<justice to, so I'd like to see if I can find a good instituition to
<recommend to this person.  I seem to remember from an AV
<preservation workshop that the place for 78s was on the West
<Coast somewhere.  Any ideas from the list?
<
<Roy Webb, C.A.
<Multimedia Archivist
<Special Collections
<J. Willard Marriott Library
<295 South 1500 East
<University of Utah
<Salt Lake City, Utah   84112
<(801) 585-3073  //  fax (801) 585-3976
<rwebb@library.utah.edu
<------------------------------
<
<Date:    Mon, 3 Jun 2002 09:40:27 -0700
<From:    Roy Webb <rwebb@LIBRARY.UTAH.EDU>
<Subject: Re: collection of 78RPM records to be donated
<
<Sorry, not feeling well and not thinking straight.  The collection of
<78s is music, including some Caruso recordings and popular music
<of the times (late 1890s through 19-teens); that's all the details the
<donor gave me.
<
<Roy
<
<Roy Webb, C.A.
<Multimedia Archivist
<Special Collections
<J. Willard Marriott Library
<295 South 1500 East
<University of Utah
<Salt Lake City, Utah   84112
<(801) 585-3073  //  fax (801) 585-3976
<rwebb@library.utah.edu

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