Re: [ARSCLIST] unknown artists and archives

[David Lennick <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Peter and Company..let me just step in and say that as a USER of a number of
archives in Toronto, Ottawa, Syracuse, Maryland and other locales, I'm glad that
there are archives which serve niches and archives that accept anything. What
they do about self-respect is between them and their mentors, confessors or
psychiatrists. I regularly request some pretty obscure (but not unique, one-off
or particularly distinguished) items from at least two of these organizations and
as often as not, I'll receive a positive answer, even though the disc itself
looks as if it spent most of its existence in a barn. I also attend the surplus
sales of any archives within reach and am sometimes amazed at the condition of
their rejects.

dl

Peter Hirsch wrote:

> As a comment to Steven:
>
> I take the risk of being labeled a pedantic nitpicker, but I have to say
> that your collection would absolutely be rejected by any self-respecting
> archives since there is nothing archival about it (unless it is made up
> or demos, one-offs of some sort or another), other than its
> representation of the part of Stephen C. Barr's life spent amassing it.
> It _WOULD_ most probably be most gladly accepted by some non-archive
> repository (library or other entity dedicated to its format or genre).
> It is not in any way a putdown when I say that archives are committed to
> preserving unique, UNPUBLISHED (that is un-issued by recording company)
> materials. I work for the same unit at NYPL that Matt does and we
> routinely separate out (published) books, musical scores and recordings
> that come in as part of archival collections and merge them into the
> holdings of the library with a note in the guide to the collection
> acknowledging their existence. Of  course, if the item is annotated in
> any significant way, that makes it unique and it is retained and
> described in the guide.
>
> I also take some exception to your characterization of archives as
> interested only in certified "high art". Matt has it exactly right, an
> archive has the right to set its scope of what it takes in, cares for,
> preserves and makes accessible. Some might want only mainstream DWEMs
> (OK, dead white European males, in case that is not entirely clear) in
> their stacks and that is their right, an obligation according to their
> mission statement. The cool thing, is that there is room for them and
> the archives that only are interested in decidedly alive non-white
> non-Euro individuals of whatever sexual orientation. If you venture into
> the forums that ARSC and the Music Library Association provide, online
> and face to face at conferences, I am sure you would find that there is
> a niche, and probably not all that obscure a one, that would be more
> than interested and dedicated to the preservation of anything you can name.
>
> Peter Hirsch
>
> steven c wrote:
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Matthew Snyder" <msnyder@xxxxxxxx>
> >
> >>> I think its wrong to deduce, as Steve does below, that "archivists think
> >>>
> >> in
> >>
> >>> terms of what is already viewed as 'worthy'." Some things, such as E.J.
> >>> Bellocq's Storyville Portraits, we only know about at all, because the
> >>> archive (in this case, MoMA) took a chance on something that wouldn't
> >>>
> >> have
> >>
> >>> looked like it was worth preserving. Photographs of prostitutes, anyone?
> >>>
> >> David is basically correct, but I must add that the greatest tool an
> >> archivist has in appraisal (an archivist's term; it's what we're talking
> >> about here) is a MISSION STATEMENT. Meaning, your collection has a set of
> >> collection criteria. You collect within a certain time frame, or national
> >> origin, or cultural affiliation, or artistic movement, etc. The more
> >> specific your collection criteria is the easier it is do decide what you
> >> take and what you don't. Space, resources for processing, and other
> >> factors also come in, of course, but the collecting criteria you set out
> >> for yourself is in many ways the final arbiter of what comes in the front
> >> door, because you don't take "everything you possibly can"; that' s
> >> impossible.  You take what best fits your collecting policy. NYPL Music
> >> Division concentrates on American music, a broad mandate, but then it's a
> >> big institution with (comparatively) deep resources in terms of processing
> >> capacity and storage.
> >>
> >> This doesn't mean that agonizing decisions don't have to be made (fairly
> >> often, in fact), but it is indeed a mistake to think that there is a
> >> preconceived notion of what is "worthy" on an artistic basis. It has much
> >> more to do with what is "worthy" according to your institution's mission.
> >>
> >>
> > Having started this thread, I should point out that what I meant by
> > "worthy" is the fact that "official" archivists...i.e. those often
> > employed by major libraries, particularly those related to "serious"
> > educational institutions, are generally more likely to preserve
> > (and/or WANT to preserve) sound recordings of classical artists
> > and material, along with those in "folk" genres ("folk" in the
> > ACTUAL, not record-store, sense of the description)...as opposed
> > to popular music (in particular music that lives up to the "popular"
> > description literally, which is often so omnipresent as to be
> > disregarded due to boredom if nothing else!).
> >
> > My personal "archive" (of 78rpm records, mostly 1910-1950 or so)
> > represents a fair sampling of what was popular during that era...
> > mainly because record companies all issued their own versions
> > of popular songs until the late thirties. The concept of
> > different labels offering entirely different tunes by different
> > performers...the way the industry currently operates...seems
> > to have showed up once the "swing era" brought in a new,
> > younger demographic as record buyers, one which not only
> > wanted a given song, but a given performance of that song.
> > In 1928, one could choose between any number of versions of
> > a "hit" song...in fact, between vocal, dance-band, pipe-organ
> > or various other types of artists of the song if it became
> > popular enough. By 1958, the teenage record buyer wanted ONLY
> > the Elvis version of "Don't Be Cruel"...so, except for a
> > few anonymous-artist covers on bargain labels, that version
> > was the one stocked by record dealers!
> >
> > However, I would imagine that most "serious" archives would
> > probably politely refuse my half-vast collection should I
> > offer it to them as a gift (and then probably share quite
> > a bit of laughter once I was out of earshot..."You wouldn't
> > BELIEVE the junk that crazy fellow wanted to give us...!"
> > Now, if I had a collection of field recordings of Slobbovian
> > peasants performing their ancestral tunes, accompanied on
> > the rare 13-string osklivost made from an actual tortoise
> > shell (with or without its original inhabitant...)...
> >
> > Steven C. Barr
> >
> >
> >
> >