Robert’s Rants & Rationalizations

The Library of Congress today announced the donation of over 200,000 recordings from the Universal Music Group. Besides being the largest single donation of audio the Library has ever received, the gift is notable for being made up of mainly metal master recordings of the audio, the highest standard where archival purposes are concerned.

Recordings by Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and many other famous musicians are included in the donation, which is in the process of being transferred from a Pennsylvania storage facility to the Library of Congress. According to a statement, the recordings will eventually be available to be streamed by the public from the Library’s website.

First though, the collection will have to be digitized and preserved. In addition to the 200,000 metal masters, the donation includes between 8,000 and 10,000 reel to reel tapes and 15,000 lacquer discs. A metal master is the plate that stamps a record — it’s got ridges instead of grooves — and is easier to preserve than the original or lacquer discs onto which original recordings were once made.

The set of recordings, made between the late 1920s and the end of the 1940s, is thought to include clean takes of many familiar songs as well as in-between-song chatter from recording sessions.

Universal comes out of the deal smiling. The material that comprises this donation is from the 78 era, so the label has likely remastered and digitized anything that it felt had monetary value. Universal negotiated the right to have access to the digitized files but would have to pay for any special digitization requests. The New York Times reports that another gift of recordings from the 1950s and ’60s is likely if the process goes well. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]

To learn more about the NPR iPhone app, go to http://iphone.npr.org/recommendnprnews