----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Hirsch" <punto@xxxxxxxx>
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 It is not in any way a putdown when I say that archives are committed to preserving unique, UNPUBLISHED (that is un-issued by recording company) materials.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.
And what you have neatly accomplished is to prove my point for me! The number of demos, one-offs, and other unique or near-unique items is, first, inherently limited by the number created...and, second, provides no useful information about the aspects of everyday life in a past (and thus, so far, non-recreatable) period of time. To me, one of the main functions of a library or an educational institution is to provide for its users what they usually wish to know...and that is how life was lived by ordinary, everyday people at one or more points in the past. In fact, having minored in history while in university, I found that also to be a problem in history classes and textbooks...they went into excruciating detail about the rulers, and said little or nothing about what life might have been lived by the peasants!
There is, of course, good reason behind collecting and archiving those unique items, since failing to do so would deprive the present day of any record (pun unintended) that the recorded item or event had ever taken place. However, in many cases, these items had little or no effect on history (in any sense)...in some cases, they represented "dead ends" in a development, while in others, they went unheard (or un-whatever) by others in whatever field it was, and thus had no influence.
Knowing that a, say, clarionet player, had been recorded playing an otherwise unrecorded or unpublished piece of music...and that the recording somehow was saved for posterity, along with the information about it (which often has long since "gone missing" when such items are found), tells us little (and that often indirectly) about life was about at the time...even life for whatever sub-group (racial, ethnic, economic, usw.) was like. Listening to a group of popular recordings, OTOH, often tells us much about the life of those who listened to them and made them popular!
One of the most enjoyable museum visits I have ever had was to a small local museum in Goderich, Ontario. It was basically the accumulation of an eccentric character who apparently dragged home and saved many, if not most, of the discards of his neighbours. As a result, once the items had been cleaned and put in a neat (more or less) display, they effectively gave the present-day visitors a snapshot of life as it had been lived in Goderich (and similar communities) between c.1900 and c.1940. Had I been able, I would have offered to create a perfect "soundtrack" for them by copying the recordings which had been popular then!
We too often dismiss "everyday" material...especially while it is passing through that (ever shorter) "awkward age" of being too old to publicly admit to owning, but too new to be of nostalgic interest...with a comment like "Oh, those are too ordinary...they're all over the place!" Somewhat later, we go looking for one of the item...and discover that none survived, since they were all discarded as being "too common!"
Steven C. Barr