Open Forum

Hello, my museum department (Education and Public Programs) is looking into converting our old media (cassette tapes from the late 1980s - early 2000s) into digital audio, and also if it is worth saving the tapes afterwards. 
From your experience: 

What are “best practices” for archiving audio/media files from public programs?

How did your institution handle the transition from analog to digital?

How are tapes archived? How are your digital files archived?

Thank you for any advice! 

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Rebecca Lee
Los Angeles CA
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Having carried out digital audio workshops at my previous institution for our Education department's digital learning initiatives, this is a question that I love thinking about. I won't get too into the specifics of how or what file format you should use when digitizing audio since those seem to change all the time. (Who uses mp3s anymore?)

I will say that you should partner with your institutions' collections staff (if you have a collections staff) as that is a question that I was surprised to realize is an ongoing debate within all the cultural institutions I've worked at. Whatever Digital Asset Management (DAM) plan your organization is working on is something that all other institutions would benefit from sharing. 

Second, and being that you're in LA, partner with local recording studios to help solidify what the best file format and storage options are for those digital audio files. You'd be surprised to see how many professional service providers are excited to help out their local museums.

Third, ABSOLUTELY keep the tapes. Coming from a collections' based museum has taught me the value of the object itself (as opposed the the content of the object). Both can tell compelling stories of not just the producer of content, but also the consumer. Having the physical objects helps tell the complete story of who created that content, how people consumed or used content over time, and the timeless need to make music or document audio. 

Very excited to see where this conversation leads. 

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Edgar Quintanilla

Manager of DiscoverDesign.org

Chicago Architecture Foundation

Chicago IL
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Disclosure:  I have not done audio archiving professionally for a museum.

However, this topic is of interest to me, as I've converted a fair amount of old audio tapes into digital formats.  This has been a great way to preserve recordings made when I was a very young child.  If you're looking to make the conversion on the cheap, there are a number of software programs that are very useful.  Audacity is quite capable and can be downloaded for free.  Audacity even has an intelligent noise reduction feature, which can remove the characteristic "hiss" associated with analog tape recordings.  This feature is very effective and easy to use.  Plus, you can save the original unprocessed audio file as well as the reduced noise version.  The files can be saved in multiple formats (mp3, WAV, etc.) and if you like you can burn audio CDs from them.  To get good results, start with the best cassette player you can find for your audio source.  (I like Denon and Nakamichi.)  If you're pressed for time, you can use a cassette player that will offer "high-speed dubbing", and record the audio files at this higher speed.  Then, using time/pitch shifting functions within the software, the audio can be slowed back down to original speed in it's new digital format.  Depending on the cassette machine, this can produce lower quality sound, so it is generally preferred to record in real time, although this can take a long time. 

I recommend multiple storage formats for digital media.  An external hard drive is a good idea, as this can protect you from data loss in the event of a hard drive crash in your computer.  USB flash drives are inexpensive and compact.  CDs or DVDs have been shown to degrade over time, although this can depend considerably on the quality of the disc and on storage conditions. 

For storing tapes, avoid high-humidity environments and UV light exposure.  Analog cassette tapes experience a phenomenon known as "print-through", in which the magnetic ferrous oxide particles on one section of tape can influence an adjacent section of tape that it is touching while the tape is spooled up.  This is a subtle effect, but it does happen, so most recording engineers recommended store their analog master tapes "tails out", which means that the tape should be fast-forwarded to the end before being placed in storage. 

Hope this helps!

      Michael

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Michael Holland
Principal/Owner
Michael Holland Productions
Bozeman MT
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Thank you for your advice and input! I'll be sure to handle the cassettes delicately [they are before my time] but are invaluable to my museum's history.

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Rebecca Lee
Los Angeles CA
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Good post.

Thank you for the detail provided.  As museums, one would hope we have a climate controlled collections space but you never know.  Degrading begins early and can really damage and destroy.  

I've worked in museums where entire collections of 8mm film, photographic slides and photographs have degraded totally due to temp. fluctuations.

I agree on the multiple storage applications.  I spent months converting my family slides and I saved to flash drives, to DVD, to CD and on an external hard drive.  Felt compelled to save in every way possible after digitizing 1500 slides.  It was a long process.

Best,

Linda

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Linda Nelson
Registrar
Maryland Science Center
Baltimore MD
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I've been conducting oral history projects for years, in most cases to support programs and in some to be used in exhibits.  I have been worrying for some time how we'll manage to preserve both the audio and the video (I always do both in an interview).  We finally have a small operating budget to continue this program, and it's going to be handed over to the collections department, though I still conduct the interviews or hire people to do them. 

I've also decided that audio files we have that date back to the 1950s need to be digitized and transcribed -- everything needs to be transcribed.  I think it will be easier to access written documents (yes, even paper!!) down the road than it will be to maintain the equipment needed to play back lps, reel-to-reel tapes, cassettes, DVDs, etc.  At first, I was buying archival DVDs and then realized that there will soon come a day when no one has a device on which to play these.  So, I'm doing multiple things, as has been mentioned by others.  I digitize everything, save the originals, transcribe and print out transcripts, and store digital files on a secure server that gets backed-up daily.  I don't yet trust the cloud for these types of files.

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Elspeth Inglis
Assistant Director for Educational Services
Kalamazoo Valley Museum
Kalamazoo MI
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I'm sorry I'd missed this discussion until now!  I'd agree with much of what has been said previously, though I'd avoid high-speed dubbing, if possible.  It does allow you to get through more content faster, but results in an inferior copy.  Given that these digital copies are going to be your institution's originals when the tapes are no longer playable, it's a good idea to make the best copy possible.  A few other tips from my experience making digital copies of analog media:

Find cleaning solution - alcohol and cotton swabs will work - so you can clean the machine's playback heads periodically.  Old tapes can leave residue on the heads, muffling subsequent transfers slightly.  

If you can afford it, use an external analog-to-digital converter, rather than the one in your computer.  

Always save in a non-lossy format like .wav, and consider making a secondary "use" copy that's separate from your primary. robust digital copy.  You may also want to look into .bwav format for the primary digital copy, which allows you to save a little bit of metadata in the file itself. Then if the filename is inadvertently changed, the file is misplaced, or becomes corrupted, you'll still be able to figure out what's in there.  

Be sure you have a solid, descriptive file-naming schema in place before you start digitization work. 

For anyone interested, the Association of Recorded Sound Collections has just created a book (free as a PDF!) that was written for cultural institutions with audio collections but no professional A/V archivists on staff.  You can view it here: ARSC Guide to Audio Preservation

Best of luck!

Dave

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Dave Lewis
Curator of Collections and Digital Media
Birthplace of Country Music
Bristol TN
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An uncomplicated way to convert audio cassettes to digital optical disks is to use the Tascam CD Recorder/Cassette Deck, model CC-222MKIV.

We purchased one from B&H Photo for $399.

Although it's not inexpensive, it makes the process easy; just start it dubbing and let it run.

This will produce an audio CD.

The resultant audio files could be "ripped" into digital files, such as mp3's if desired. In our case, most of our audio cassettes are of interviews and the spoken word, so the quality of the originals are marginal.

Then for the archival part - the audio disk could be copied to an M-Disc which claims to have a 1000 year life which does not deteriorate as the dye-based recordable CD's and DVD's do.

A CD/DVD recorder must be M-Disc ready to be able to record M-Discs since it takes a higher powered laser to burn the tracks, but they are fairly inexpensive and run from a USB connection.

It might be a good idea to lay in a supply of audio CD players because who knows how long they will be around.

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Ronald Levere
Digital Collections Manager
Library, John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art
Sarasota FL
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Thank you, Dave for that source.  I've downloaded it and will pass it on to our collections department.

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Elspeth Inglis
Assistant Director for Educational Services
Kalamazoo Valley Museum
Kalamazoo MI
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