[ARSCLIST] Preservation policy question

[Ganesh.Irelan@xxxxxxxx]

Hello all,

I work in a private institution's audio archive.  In 1995 I started copying original, historical audio recordings to 1/4" analog tape and 2 each CD-Rs (one for on-site and one for off-site storage) for longterm preservation.  Last year, when the analog tape plants closed, I decided it was time to drop analog tape as an archival format and switched to .wav files.  Now I copy each original source to 2 each CD-Rs and .wav file stored on a secure, server based system.  

My question is whether to keep the 300+ analog tapes we have.  They require significant storage space that could be used for other archival holdings.   And, I have already gone back and created .wav files (via disc extraction) for all the content on the analog tape copies.  With two digital sources protected by geographic separation available, and with only a small part of the total collection represented on the analog copies in question, I can come up with no plausible scenario by which the analog tapes would be of benefit, now or in the future.

Would you keep the tapes or dispose of them?

Thank you.
Sincerely,

Kevin Irelan