Info 202 Fall 2011

While a number of sources covered this news item, I chose the Wall Street Journal's article on the Library of Congress' 'National Jukebox' project that launched May 10, 2011 particularly because the WSJ was the last place I expected to see it (and it's a good article). The project is remarkable because it's the first of its kind to make copyrighted audio widely accessible with the consent of the record labels who own the music (Sony and BMG). The online audio archive streams over 10,000 sound recordings and is "the largest collection of historical recordings ever made publicly available online." The Library of Congress' Audio / Visual Conservation Facility and UCSB divide information of each track into 10 categories (vocal, language, place, target audience, label, date range, composer, author, lyricist, and performer).

The project is unique because it's a collaboration of government, academic, media corporations, as well as private collectors. Many of the recordings have not been widely accessible for almost a century and interest in the project can be gauged by the 600,000 listens in only the first week.  This makes sense considering "Less than 4% of historically important recordings made before 1925 are available from the rights holders".  I thought it was a good fit for this assignment because it makes marginalized recordings available and utilizes current O/R technologies to reach an incredibly wide audience, while maintaining the integrity of the physical collection on the back end.

I was fortunate enough to be with some folks from the LoC's Recorded Sound Division at a conference one day after the launch and they reported an incredible number of unique visitors / minute in just that first day (I can't recall the exact number, but it was in the thousands). That same day, political commentator/television host, Rachel Maddow coined the term "Library of Coolness," in response to the launch and I couldn't agree more.