What do Radiohead, the comedian Steve Martin, and Big Bird all have in common?

Ilka Heale knows . . .

'Sounds' by Fe Ilya. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Last month it was announced that 25 sound recordings have been selected for preservation and added to the US Library of Congress' National Recording Registry. Each year, the Library of Congress (LoC) chooses recordings that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".

Amongst them was the public-nominated 'OK Computer' by Oxford's Radiohead. Released in 1997, this was the band's third album but their first to reach number one in the charts. The album's abstract lyrics, densely layered sound and wide range of influences laid the groundwork for their later, more experimental work.

Album cover photo by Mr.Smashy.  Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Since 2002, the National Recording Preservation Board (NRPB) and members of the public have nominated recordings to the National Recording Registry. The Library is currently accepting nominations for the next registry at the NRPB website.

Another recording added was an album of songs from the US children's TV series Sesame Street (remember that?). With its catchy theme song, the programme was first broadcast in 1969. Using music as an integral part of the educational development for young children, the programme's songwriters wrote songs that covered a wide range of genres such as country-and-western, jazz, opera, Latin dance tunes and even Romanian fiddle tunes! The quality of music attracted to the show a diverse mix of musicians such as B.B King, One Direction, R.E.M and Feist.

Sesame Street 10th Anniversary Album, photo by Luke Gattuso. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Steve Martin's 1978 album of comic songs, 'A Wild and Crazy Guy', also made the LoC list. Now a Grammy award winning musician, Martin plays the banjo and sings with the Bluegrass band Steep Canyon Rangers.

For the entire list of 25 sound recordings go to: www.loc.gov/today/pr/2015/15-041.html

And it isn't just the US who are running a sound preservation project. On 12 January 2015, the British Library launched a new initiative called Save our Sounds. One of the main aims of this programme is to preserve as much as possible of the nation's rare and unique sound recordings - not just those in the British Library's collections but also key items from partner collections across the UK.

Sound collections at York

• In the Library’s Fairhurst Building, we have the John Barry Audiovisual collection which includes our large collection of music CDs and DVDs. You can search for titles using the University Library catalogue YorSearch. To narrow down your search you can select the audiovisual category from the menu on the left of the screen.

• Along with our physical collections, we also have access to a list of electronic audio resources. For a full list, please see the Music subject guide.

• In a joint venture between the Music Department and the Borthwick Institute for Archives, the University of York Sound Archives contains sound recording collections available for teaching, research and listening.

For more information on this post . . .

• Although we do not have any of their CDs in our collection, there are several books about Radiohead on the catalogue, including a musical score for the songs on 'OK Computer'.

• The Library has this ebook about Sesame Street: "G" is for growing : thirty years of research on children and Sesame Street edited by Shalom M. Fisch and Rosemarie T. Truglio.

• For books by and films starring Steve Martin, search the University Library catalogue, YorSearch.

CILIP MmIT 2014

On 11 - 12 September Ben Catt from our Serials & E-Resources team attended the CILIP MmIT 2014 Conference in Sheffield. Here’s his round-up of the event.

The Edge, Sheffield by Virginia Knight (source: http://goo.gl/8cyZWC) CC BY-SA

MmIT (Multimedia Information and Technology) is a special interest group of CILIP (the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) which aims to unite forward-thinking members in exploring the role of new technology in information services. The group hosts an annual conference in which a key topic is explored by speakers and delegates from a range of library and information sectors. This year the two-day event was held at The Edge, University of Sheffield, and the topic was Sound & Vision in Librarianship: Going Beyond Words and Pictures. Here are a few highlights of some of the sessions attended:

• Penny Andrews presented the LibraryBox, a modified wireless router which can be used as a portable, inexpensive and secure digital distribution tool. Penny demonstrated how LibraryBox, funded through a successful Kickstarter campaign, can make open access materials easily available to users ‘off the grid’. Delegates were invited to connect their devices and help  themselves to a wealth of free e-books, PDFs, music and video content. Practical applications for LibraryBox include promoting open advocacy and providing reading materials in locations without web access such as hospitals and rural areas. Here is a map of currently known LibraryBox locations around the world.

Photo: LibraryBox by Jason Griffey, reused under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC license.

• Valerie Stevenson’s session ‘Archiving British Culture’ provided an overview of the Special Collections and Archives at Liverpool John Moores, including Jon Savage’s England’s Dreaming Archive, with numerous punk fanzines, posters and demo tapes of Liverpool bands, and 30,000 photographs of everyday Liverpool life in the mid-20th century from the Keith Medley collection. Materials from the LJMU collections have been used in an array of public exhibitions including Punk: Chaos to Couture at the New York Met and the Liverpool Biennial James McNeill Whistler exhibition at the Bluecoat. 

  

  Anarchy in the U.K. Sex Pistols, No.1, 1976, published by Glitterbest. Photo: Ray Stevenson. Taken from England’s Dreaming: The Jon Savage Archive at Liverpool John Moores University Special Collections and Archives

• Richard Ranft, Head of Sound and Vision at the British Library Sound Archive discussed the challenges involved in providing access and discoverability to their collection of five million tracks from 150 years of recording history. Ranft described Sound Archive users as “time travellers” navigating their collections ranging from field recordings of street ambience on Stonegate to the lunchtime news broadcasts from earlier that afternoon. 50,000 tracks can be streamed via BL Sounds and external platforms like Soundcloud are used to encourage listeners to tag and annotate content (‘human-led data enrichment’). Other resources for those interested in exploring the Sound Archive include the Sound & Vision blog and an intriguing found-sound playlist by producer Matthew Herbert.

• For the day’s final session Iain Logie Baird (grandson of John Logie Baird) introduced the Science Museum Group’s wonderful sound and vision collection. A selection of 230,000 objects, some dating back to the 1700s, can be explored via Collections Online. Highlights included the 27ft-long exponential horn loudspeaker (recently rebuilt, having been accidentally destroyed in 1949) and a 1924 BBC recording of cellist Beatrice Harrison performing a duet with nightingales in her back garden. There was also mention of York’s own National Railway Museum, part of the Science Museum Group and home to over one million objects from three hundred years of railway history (including their library collections, which can also be searched on YorSearch).

MmIT 2014 provided a valuable opportunity to share new ideas on multimedia and technology in library and information services. It was great to be offered an insight into work being done at other institutions and to chat with library professionals dedicated to making their collections more accessible and open to the public.

MmIT logo, used with permission.