Re: [ARSCLIST] Advice sought on assessing value of sound archives

[George Brock-Nannestad <pattac@xxxxxxxx>]

From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad

Alec,

you are addressing questions of universal interest to collections and their
users. The discussion is by its very nature quite philosophical.

 Several obvious questions come to mind:
>
> - What value can be ascribed to something on the basis of uniqueness, when it
> cannot be re-acquired at any price?

----- I think that it would be helpful - once again - to consider the total
information content of the item, because that is the basis of what somebody
may be able to extract in a use situation. The total information content is
what one may learn from and about the item. Furthermore it has utility (that
in many cases gets used up before the item becomes a repository of
information as a museum artefact). Some artefacts have the storage of
information as their utility, and apart from that they contain secondary
information "about themselves". Such approaches have been described by me
under the term Operational Conservation Theory.

When an item is unique it means that the information it contains cannot be
found anywhere else. Obviously that is not quite true, because the mere fact
that it is identified and entered into some kind of register is some
information. But in order to extract some further information from this
unique artefact, it is frequently documented, and if its utitility is to
store information, then this information is frequently extracted and stored
in parallel. All this means that the item itself may be destroyed, but those
parts that were extracted beforehand do not disappear with the item. Now only
remains the problem of proving the authenticity of the information that has
been retained, and that is a serious problem, because the "standard" against
which to check it has been destroyed.

So, if we look at the monetary or insurance value of such an object, what we
must insure against are the consequences of not being able to prove
authenticity.

>
> - In a digital age, when an archive can make multiple identical copies of
> recordings and the original is effectively retired from use, do the copies
> have value beyond the cost of the physical material?

The capacity to prove authenticity is not lost nearly as quickly as the quality of
the information in a decaying sound carrier. This is because for quite some time
even deteriorated information will have characteristics that are identical to the
characteristics of information that has been extracted beforehand. And the
physical linking of this information to an artefact that has secondary
information that may be proven as to e.g. time of manufacture, storage, handling
(all types of information that may be extracted by means of specialized equipment
different from replay equipment) is the authentication. Such determinations may
equally be performed for a long time.

The situation changes materially when the information has been extracted and
placed in the digital domain. This is because a digital signal both has the property
of being copyable without any change, but unfortunately also the property that
bit streams may be edited without any change in apparent quality. H.M. Gladney
(http://home.pacbell.net/hgladney/) has discussed various schemes for
maintaining authenticity for digital documents, but I fear that all they can
ensure is that if a copy of an original document purports to be from a
particular authorized holder of such a copy, then that fact can be
authenticated.

----- in consequence of the above, if the original is destroyed, an
authenticated or authenticatable copy would take the place of the original as
a surrogate, and the same value would attach to the copy


Is the value of the
> original diminished in any way, since it may no longer be necessary except in
> an emergency?

----- no, the value as the authentic object is unchanged. The market value
might be reduced, though, because there is a certain sick demand for items
that are unique, which means that the possessor may prevent anybody from
obtaining the information. This does not apply to public collections, though.

Is the value of a copy increased as the original deteriorates
> and becomes unplayable?

----- if it is a sole and authenticated copy, then I would say "yes".
However, if careful collections management has provided multiple identical
copies, that would not necessarliy apply.

>
> - In the absence of "market demand" for original recordings such as these, to
> what extent can value be determined at an academic institution by the
> usefulness of the recording to the curriculum or to researchers?

----- if the recordings have usefulness, perhaps it would be wise to
determine why they have usefulness, and whether the access copies presently
in use are actually displaying maximum usefulness. If the original recordings
are in good condition it does not matter when "improved" information
extraction is performed, the potential is there. If they were suddenly
removed, the value to be replaced would be the cost of obtaining similar
material for academic use.

Kind regards,


George