Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project

This week, I looked at UCSB's Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project. This project focuses on the digitization and preservation of cylinder recordings, the earliest form of commercial audio recordings.

Selection Decisions: As far as I understand from the descriptions on the Web site, the UCSB Library digitized their entire collection of cylinder recordings (over 7,000), as well as donations from individuals and other institutions. Since the technology for cylinder recordings is so old and was used for only a brief period of time, it was essential to digitize these recordings in order to preserve them for future use. This project does a great job of making these recordings available to the general public, posting them in 3 different forms (streaming, MP3, and wav files), so it is apparent that access was also an important factor driving the project.

Metadata: This collection does a great job of making all known information available to the user. It provides the essential information about the original recording (date, performer, title, original format) while also making the technical information (file size and type) available. The site gives a thorough overview of the digitization process and software, as well as some reviews of their process and products. Search abilities are also very thorough, allowing browsing by genre, instrument, subject, and ethnic roots, and searching by several different areas.

Object Characteristics: It's hard for me to know exactly what quality of digital object is demonstrated by this site, as I don't know firsthand what a cylinder recording usually sounds like. The "Project Overview" section on the Web site explains the extensive process undertaken to clarify sound throughout the digitization project, so I would guess that all of the crackling and sound distortion is typical to this kind of recording. As I mentioned before, it's useful that the recordings are available in three different formats that are all readily available and perform without glitches. Some of the entries did not have sound recordings available online, for a reason unknown to me. I'm guessing it's because of issues of copyright, but I can't be sure- the finding aid doesn't make this clear to the user.

Intended Audience: This site states clearly that its primary intended users are the academic community- university students and professors. It provides valuable resources for historical, sociological and musicological research. However, this site is also very accessible for anyone in the public who has an interest in these recordings on the basis of social, historical, or musical interests. In fact, it has several streaming radio stations based on subject. It's overall a very user-friendly resource, and my favorite project thus far.