4 ms·

It comes down to "what is the work?" Take one of Ray Charles' records.. Is it just the music itself? Does it include the physical media and its condition? If

It comes down to "what is the work?" Take one of Ray Charles' records.. Is it just the music itself? Does it include the physical media and its condition? If the media has deteriorated, how does that affect it? Does it include the cover art? Does it include the liner notes? Does it include the notes through the production process? For the recording of a live performance, does it include the recording equipment and the venue? Does it include the audience reaction? Does it include documenting everyone who performed backup vocals, accompanied via instruments, produced it, and the label itself? While normal listeners (99.9% of the public) would stop at the music, the audiophiles will want to understand the physical media and performance conditions, and the researchers/archivists want everything because it's a snapshot of a particular work at a particular time & place via particular means. But part of your comment is spot on.. diverse sources. It's not feasible for one Library to digitize absolutely everything in the world (or a country), so we participated in an exchange with a bunch (20? not sure anymore) of other libraries, museums, etc who could digitize their own collections and then we could all share them at scale with as little DRM as possible. Think of it as Napster for libraries. I advocated for no DRM (especially for old, out of production works) but that's why we butted heads with the RIAA.

WalterBright 5y ago
Congress can help by allowing no DRM for archival use. > the audiophiles will need to understand the physical media and performance conditions, They really don't :-) > and the researchers/archivists want everything because it's a snapshot of a particular work at a particular place in time via particular means Phooey. There are far more interesting things that need archiving.
- mikewarot 5y ago
  I strongly suspect that storage of data is far cheaper than the costs of digitization, or actually storing physical objects, regardless of how high the resolution. I once put all my photos through JPEG2 compression, because I thought saving space was a good idea... I've regretted it ever since. The function of an archive is to preserve artifacts of the past with as much fidelity and context as possible. You can't possibly know what is going to be important to people in the future. Saving 2 cents on storage per century could be the equivalent of using shorter dates/times to save memory, the tradeoff that lead to the Y2K and Y2.038k problems.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    It's not remotely possible to store everything. Choices have to be made. Archivist time is expensive, too.
    - mikewarot 5y ago
      The Library of Congress already has it decided what they need to store, at a minimum... "The Library of Congress"
      - caseysoftware 5y ago
        Yes, that was the goal but they were prioritizing works that may be lost due to physical deterioration. Because in theory they already have everything: "Mandatory deposit (17 U.S.C. section 407) requires the owner of copyright or of the exclusive right of distribution to deposit in the U.S. Copyright Office for the use of the Library of Congress two complete copies of the best edition within 3 months after a work is published. Copies of all works under copyright protection that have been published or distributed in the United States must be deposited with the Copyright Office within 3 months of the date of first publication." Ref: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/mandatory_deposit.html https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/mandatory_deposit.html And final tidbit from me on this.. Yes, they get submissions of all forms of copyrighted material which means they have a pornography collection. When I was there, that group was down the hall and the lead person was a kind old lady that I chatted with every day for months before she revealed her area of focus. It was.. odd.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        Yes, I get that The Library of Congress Hath Spaketh. But the choice remains: 1. archive in as agonizingly irrelevant detail as technically possible 2. archive as much as possible before it decays irretrievably Can't have both.
        mikewarot 5y ago
        Odds are the technical information about the recording setup is fairly constant, and thus doesn't require much manual input, nor storage space to consume. They've also mentioned that always knowing the exact technical setup can help track down problems, which reduces the chances of loss as things are archived down the road.

WalterBright 5y ago

Congress can help by allowing no DRM for archival use. > the audiophiles will need to understand the physical media and performance conditions, They really don't :-) > and the researchers/archivists want everything because it's a snapshot of a particular work at a particular place in time via particular means Phooey. There are far more interesting things that need archiving.

mikewarot 5y ago
I strongly suspect that storage of data is far cheaper than the costs of digitization, or actually storing physical objects, regardless of how high the resolution. I once put all my photos through JPEG2 compression, because I thought saving space was a good idea... I've regretted it ever since. The function of an archive is to preserve artifacts of the past with as much fidelity and context as possible. You can't possibly know what is going to be important to people in the future. Saving 2 cents on storage per century could be the equivalent of using shorter dates/times to save memory, the tradeoff that lead to the Y2K and Y2.038k problems.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  It's not remotely possible to store everything. Choices have to be made. Archivist time is expensive, too.
  - mikewarot 5y ago
    The Library of Congress already has it decided what they need to store, at a minimum... "The Library of Congress"
    - caseysoftware 5y ago
      Yes, that was the goal but they were prioritizing works that may be lost due to physical deterioration. Because in theory they already have everything: "Mandatory deposit (17 U.S.C. section 407) requires the owner of copyright or of the exclusive right of distribution to deposit in the U.S. Copyright Office for the use of the Library of Congress two complete copies of the best edition within 3 months after a work is published. Copies of all works under copyright protection that have been published or distributed in the United States must be deposited with the Copyright Office within 3 months of the date of first publication." Ref: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/mandatory_deposit.html https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/mandatory_deposit.html And final tidbit from me on this.. Yes, they get submissions of all forms of copyrighted material which means they have a pornography collection. When I was there, that group was down the hall and the lead person was a kind old lady that I chatted with every day for months before she revealed her area of focus. It was.. odd.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Yes, I get that The Library of Congress Hath Spaketh. But the choice remains: 1. archive in as agonizingly irrelevant detail as technically possible 2. archive as much as possible before it decays irretrievably Can't have both.
      - mikewarot 5y ago
        Odds are the technical information about the recording setup is fairly constant, and thus doesn't require much manual input, nor storage space to consume. They've also mentioned that always knowing the exact technical setup can help track down problems, which reduces the chances of loss as things are archived down the road.