Sounds of Copyright Reform; Library Journal, 3/22/13

Michael Kelley, Library Journal; Sounds of Copyright Reform: "This country’s fascinating and invaluable patrimony of recorded sound and culture is at risk. Libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies have approximately 46 million recordings in their collections and more than six million are “in need” or “in urgent need” of preservation, according to the National Recording Preservation Plan released by the Library of Congress (LC) in December. The condition of another 20 million of the recordings is unknown, and these numbers do not include important material in private hands. This is a sprawling, complex issue dispassionately and, in a certain sense, maddeningly chronicled in the LC report, which is the first national plan for audio preservation and is the culmination of a decade of work by the library and the National Recording Preservation Board. Unless the report’s recommendations are acted upon, which would allow for the digitization of and broader access to endangered analog formats, then it is likely that within the next 15 or 20 years much of this soundscape will have become so degraded that it will be all but impossible to preserve."