The volume of output makes selection inevitable. As well as the commercial production of the recording industry we have a large non-commercial output and the output of oral historians and broadcasting output where far more material is recorded that transmitted and the unedited, untransmitted material may be potentially valuable for later usage. Specialized subject collections may also contain recorded material or the archivist may have conducted interviews, which have been edited down for public access purposes, but the unedited material has its own value. Following from this argument we might also consider one area often overlooked, which is selection at the point of origin. The recordist or sound archivist who initiates a recording needs to reflect on why he has to record this material, at what length he should be doing so, whether or not he should edit the recording and then dispose of the material which is superfluous to the recording he intended or his present requirements.

Selection has been made even more imperative as a result of the increased ease of recording. As tape recording has become easier and the equipment less cumbersome more and more recording is made possible by a greater variety of people. No longer is it the sole province of a technician to record material for preservation purposes. With improvements in equipment and ease of handling such equipment to produce acceptable recordings, more and more people are recording material which can be regarded as a useful record.

The real purpose of selection is to reduce an archive or collection to manageable proportion. The plethora of information and material can quickly get out of hand and unless selection principles are used we are in danger of sinking without trace in a tangle of magnetic tape, under a sea of books, cassettes, videodiscs or computer software. Worse we might disappear altogether into the computer hardware in search of that elusive piece of data, which was not properly labelled.

And herein lies another powerful argument for selection. If we do not select with reasonable care then what is the point of spending resources of time and money documenting, storing and preserving material, which is not of archival value?

Indeed it is a dereliction of our duty as information providers, whether archivists, librarians or information scientists not to select the material for preservation and future use. Too much information can be as difficult to handle as too little – it is equally difficult to access and discover the material, which would be most useful. The idea that you can, with the aid of modern technology, store everything easily on those convenient little cassettes appeals to the research worker, but how on earth does he think you are going to access a roomful, and it has been expressed in that very term, of video-cassettes and audiocassettes, each cassette bearing up to 3 or worse 6 hours of material, not necessarily in edited form. The research worker forgets that someone has to expend effort and time entering the information on to the database in a retrievable or accessible order.

There are inevitable constraints placed on any archive, which make it necessary to adopt selection policies. These constraints may be basic and arbitrary ones such as space for storage or the high cost of storage, or they may be constraints imposed by the available resources in terms of people and time as well as financial resources to prepare the material for storage, conservation and subsequent access.

As stated already, but always worth repeating, archives are not simply repositories. Some form of records management is essential to impose an order upon the record and make it manageable and accessible to future users of the archive, whether these users are researchers, browsers, those with a commercial concern to reuse the material or interested members of the general public.

Records management is about human resources. Without management of the record and the intervention of people the repository of sound recordings would probably deteriorate and certainly it would become difficult to locate particular items or groups of items within a very short space of time. There is of course merit in acquiring as much material as possible in a particular field of interest, especially in the early stages of development of a collection, but once acquired it is bad practice to leave such materials in an unordered state. The archivist has a responsibility to the material itself as well as his “user”. The material needs processing, filing in a retrievable order, conservation, and some form of information retrieval, however basic, should be imposed upon it as soon as possible after acquisition.

Selection may be a more leisurely process, but it is nevertheless a necessary one and should at least be considered from the outset. It need not happen immediately, but with any volume of material the need for it will quickly become apparent.

Archivists are not simply store-keepers. They must impose a discipline of management on their collections, and one of the more important disciplines will be the selection process. Selection, like management, is not an exact science. If it were then the archivist might have exact criteria and theorems to guide him. Nor do I believe that selection is an art. It can be argued as more of an art than a science, but I would prefer to consider selection as a craft, practised to achieve certain ends with suitable criteria or guidelines to meet these ends.

If the first principle of selection is to reduce the collection to manageable proportions, the purpose of selection is to ensure a balanced, representative collection of material relevant to the nature of the subject matter of the archive concerned. This means different archives will have different selection policies according to the intended use of the collection. Selecting material within areas of interest of the individual archive immediately raises the question of what is in the field of interest and what is outside? There will, almost inevitably, be grey areas where the material could be considered of use to the archive in conjunction with the rest of the collection. Rigid criteria are thus going to be of little use to the archivist; criteria must be flexible and try to take account of the related areas of interest.

Given the guiding principle that selection is of necessity one of the first major concerns of the archivist it will be necessary to establish who it is who is to select the material and then formulate the criteria for selection. Let us start with who is to select the material deposited in the archive. Some archives have selection staff who concentrates on the areas of acquisition and selection. Some archives use a system of selection committees, usually an ‘ad hoc’ arrangement whereby committee members are made aware of likely items of interest, or debate the merits from a listing supplied by archive staff. Such systems normally depend on the subsequent availability of the material and cost of acquisition. A lot of material escapes the net by this method of selection, but it does nod in the direction of consultation.

But is selection by consultation and committee necessarily a good thing? It is fraught with difficulty when sectional interests appear and squabbles break out between people from different disciplines. A short piece paraphrased from a book on Archive Administration written in 1922 by Hilary Jenkinson serves to make the point;

“The archivist is concerned to keep materials intact for the future use of students working upon subjects which neither he nor any one else has contemplated. The archivist’s work is that of conservation and his interest in his archives as archives, not as documents valuable for proving this or that thesis. How then is he to make judgments and choices on matters, which may not be his personal concern? If the archivist cannot be of use, can we not appeal to the historian - he may seem the obvious person to undertake such a task. As soon, however, as the historian’s claims in this connection are investigated it becomes clear that the choice of him as arbiter of the fate of archives is at least as open to criticism as that of the archivist. Must he not be regarded, where his own subject is concerned, as a person particularly liable to prejudice? Surely there will always remain the suspicion that in deciding upon a policy of archive conservation he favoured those archive classes, which furthered his own special line of inquiry. The very fact that a historian is known to have selected for an archive is fatal to its impartiality”.

Some of the more curious suggestions about retention of material, which have been encountered, come from eminent people in their own fields who want everything kept ‘in case they need to study it’. Why do they want to study it? Uncharitably we could suggest in order to select information for the benefit of the rest of us, but more seriously any archivist would wonder that they have the unlimited time at their disposal which is needed to sit through hundreds of hours of material.

It would appear that selection should be done by the archivist or librarian and not by outsiders with peccadilloes and sectional interests. Specially appointed staff in the archive can see the wider implications and, if thoroughly versed in the aims and objectives of the particular archive, are in a good position to select. But to be effective they must be carefully chosen and they should have a set of criteria to work with.

The purpose of this publication is to indicate possible criteria for selection in different archives. There are several governing principles, which should be considered before guidelines can be enumerated.

1. One mentioned already is that the archive selects material according to the needs, purpose and intention of the collection and with the ultimate ‘user’ in mind. Subject areas of interest may be narrow, but the related or ‘grey’ areas should not be overlooked in selection.
    
2. Material for archival preservation should be either unique to a collection or not duplicated in several existing collections where there may be a waste of resources preserving the same thing three or four times over. Legal deposit is a rarity and one archive cannot assume that any other is collecting in a particular area or country of origin. In these circumstances it becomes important for all sound archives to have selection policies and to discuss their policies with other archives both nationally and internationally and ensure that valuable material is kept somewhere, but not in each and every archive. This is one of the main reasons why the International Association of Sound Archives was formed.
    
3. Quality. This is a relative principle; closely related to the unique quality of the material. In theory the best quality material should be selected, but sometimes, when the only available material is of poor quality, its unique nature overrides the principle of quality. A closely related factor is that of technological change which may mean a recording is only available on an ‘obsolete’ carrier. Archives should not select on the basis of whether or not they can replay material - this is library selection, when the only material in a library relates closely to the playback machinery available either in the library or in the user’s home. An archive must consider other qualities of the material and if it is essential to the collection, but on an unplayable medium, an archive needs facilities to transfer it to a usable medium.
    
4. Some material may be ‘unusable’ because of copyright or contractual restrictions. However, copyright can lapse and one of the functions of an archive could be expressed as outliving copyright and other such restrictions. The material is held for the restricted period (it may even be possible to use it under certain conditions during such a period) and then, when copyright is released, the archive will be able to grant access to valuable material. Copyright restrictions should not necessarily deter selection of valuable items and the selector must think beyond the temporary restriction.
    
5. The timing of selection is also an important principle. It should never be a once-for-all decision. Some material need be kept for only short periods while checks are made on existing material which it may duplicate. Other material can be looked at retrospectively after a period or periods of time. Most archives, which practice selection, will be found to use this principle.
   An archive will collect material in accordance with its purpose and objectives but, as these may change at intervals, the selection principles will have to be flexible to accommodate these changes. Selection principles should, therefore, be subject to review.
    
6. One of the main principles of selection is objectivity within certain guidelines. Selection staff should be as objective and free form bias as possible within realistic parameters. Hindsight is a useful mechanism here and it can be achieved by adopting a long-term policy of selection. Optimum selection decisions are best taken after a ‘decent’ interval.

These principles are not of course criteria for selection, but they include many of the considerations the archivist should take into account in formulating his own criteria for selection.

The rest of this publication will expand and elucidate many of these principles and indicate how practice and practical considerations affect them.

The criteria for selection of sound recordings have not been, and indeed cannot be laid down as hard-and-fast rules, but it is hoped that the readers of the book will find many practical examples and working principles in the pages which follow; examples of criteria used in different types of archive with particular purposes which will assist the profession of sound archivists to arrive at reasoned, practical criteria for selecting material to store in archives for passing on to future generations.

IASA has recognised that selection is a central area of the archivist’s concern and this series of papers exists to continue the debate about criteria or guidelines for selection; a debate which may rumble on for some time. In highlighting the problems we can only hope that our successors will recognise that we took notice of an obligation to select, and even if they may quibble over what was selected or destroyed, will be grateful for the production of more manageable archives.

Helen Harrison is the Media Librarian at the Open University in England. This paper is an extended version of the brief Chairman’s introduction given at the IASA conference in Budapest, 1981.

As a widespread phenomenon sound-archives have not been in existence for very many years compared to other types of archives and collections from man’s past. We have only just started to realize some of the problems which other forms of collections have had for many years; for instance the problem of preservation, and problems in connection with the rapid growth of collections in modern times. Suddenly, the collections may - for different reasons - be considered too large, awkward to handle and too difficult to use.

We all know - or have a clear suspicion - that audiovisual materials are much more difficult to preserve than documents. The cost of preservation may in the long term be so large that the necessary resources cannot be raised. Utilizing material in the archives, in research, in broadcasts or reused in the form of sound- or video-cassettes will for many subject-groups become a problem, because of the sheer size of the collections. It is not only limited space that causes us to declare the collections too large - audiovisual material is very, very slow to work with, and one can fear that some research-disciplines will give up using audiovisual material to answer traditional problems and questions if unreasonable amounts of time have to be used referring to audiovisual material compared to other forms of source-material. This problem should not be underestimated. The type of questions which the users of the archive expect an answer to after investment of a reasonable amount of work, will degenerate into simplification and end up in becoming irrelevant for serious research, if the collections are too large or confusing.

Up until now we have only seen the beginning of a selection-debate within the realm of sound-archives - and have been spared the merciless necessity of radical selection until now. This is the beginning of a debate which will last for many years and which will be constantly reformulated in connection with technological developments, changing types of users and economic development. The debate will be intensified and we will hear echoes of it every year at IASA conferences and many articles about the problems in the Phonographic Bulletin.

The problem of selection has many aspects and it can be discussed in several ways. It is of course impossible to solve the whole problem in one short session. This paper will, therefore, concentrate on a somewhat over-looked aspect; namely how selection is conceived of philosophically and methodologically. What kind of philosophical conception offers the best interpretation of the general structure in the selection process, and what type of methodological conception can, in the most fruitful way, be used in analysing the details of the selection process?

In the first place it is necessary to create a clear image of a selection process, because it is the image, which is the starting point of the analysis. It is not unimportant what kind of selection process you imagine. Some archives have very rigid selection-typologies - so rigid that it is almost meaningless to speak of selection - and other archives take everything they can lay their hand on. It is clearly unfruitful for our analysis to take such procedures as a starting point. It is necessary to build up our image from elements of a selection process which is reasonably free from rigid selection-typologies and at the same time considers it absolutely necessary to make rather thoroughgoing selection. When one is investigating philosophical problems it is important not to get lost in practical problems - we want to analyse the structure of the selection problem, and to that end it is necessary to construct a kind of ideal-typical image of the selection process - ideal-typical in the sense that the image consists only of elements in the process which are relevant for the analysis. The ideal-typical cannot be found in any existing archive but, nevertheless, our construction of the image has to originate from a knowledge of existing archives. I will, therefore, describe very briefly the selection process in my own archive and thereafter, you must supply this image with elements from other archives, which are known to you. In short: we want to create an image of a ‘clean’ selection-process, and in this creation or construction we only use the elements which characterize and accentuate the structure in the process.

The archive used as an example is Radio Denmark’s archive for spoken word and non-commercial music. The only principle we need to take into consideration in our selection of material is ‘possible re-use in radio programme production’, and as radio programmes are being made about almost everything - or at least one can imagine so - we are relatively free from rigid typologies. But we are restricted by the fact that if the collections become too large, they will at the same time become unfit for programme production - a problem which is normally greater for journalists than for researchers. 95% of the material is actively selected by archive staff and the selection is based on short descriptions of content which are sent to the archive from the programme production departments, including television when the sound track is sometimes relevant for our collections. Every day we receive these short descriptions of content covering about 50 hours of production and we select on average 5% from the large number of complex problems being treated in a nation-wide non-commercial broadcasting station. The intention of selection is that the material shall contain the essence of the subject and its treatment; and that, of course, cannot be done by selecting some ‘objective’ percentage from news and cultural relevant programmes - in fact it is a question open to debate as to whether ‘objective’, automatic percentage-selection deserves the name ‘selection’ - rather it should be called ‘sorting’. The selector is supposed to possess an educated problem-consciousness - an education which not only derives from knowledge of the radio-medium itself and its specific way of treating the problems, but also from independent and thoroughgoing knowledge of the problems essential and characteristic of his own time and our knowledge of man.

In Radio Denmark the selection procedure is mainly founded on one staff member who examines all the radio and TV programmes each day. After this first examination the selected material is secured by other persons such as technical staff and the programme departments themselves - but the important thing here is the principle - one person/all the programmes - which forms the corner-stone of selection in Radio Denmark. One of the advantages of this principle is that it makes it possible to build up the collections systematically around essential themes and developments in the medium. For example, all the small but perhaps important elements from news and magazine programmes are examined in the selection procedure. Separately they are perhaps not relevant for the archive, but if systematically pieced together they can be used in the future description of many important problems, some while ago in Copenhagen there were episodes in connection with young people who illegally moved into empty houses. Several programme departments, both television and radio, reported these episodes, which were rather interesting in bringing into focus otherwise unrealised problems. But the reports where only given as short items in magazine and news programmes, and they would have been lost if selection was limited to the large, unique programmes. This is often the case if the programme department has a monopoly of selecting material for the archive. One problematic point in the procedure is that the basis for selection is short written summaries. To what extent is it possible to use written abstracts as a basis for selection of audiovisual material? Another facet of the selection process, which cannot be covered in this paper.

To sum up, the process of selection can be described as follows. Each day short abstracts of about 50 hours of transmission are received representing about ten pages of written abstracts. On average you must select five per cent and it must happen in such a way that the selected material does not give a passive reflection of the broadcast material. The selection ought to be active and creative, so that new problems can be treated and researched in the selected material.

The next step in the analysis is to move from this newly created image of the selection process to a precise formulation of the selection problem itself

Formulation of the problem is of great importance to the kind of answer arrived at in the end. The formulation of the problem depends on the purpose of the analysis, and the purpose is to reveal some essential logical structures in the selection process. We are now moving into a broad and difficult field within theory of science, it is the field concerned with the relationship between general or ‘nomological’ knowledge and concrete, ‘ontological’ knowledge. This relationship between general, nomological knowledge and concrete, ontological knowledge is basic to understanding that the sciences are composed of a systematic, ‘law-seeking’ part, and when trying to use a science to investigate specific, practical problems and events. This can be applied to most of the sciences; theoretical physics being used on practical problems, for instance, Newtonian mechanics can be used to calculate the time for a specific solar eclipse, or other general physical laws can be used in specific weather forecasts, or theoretical economics can be used to explain specific economic events; or within our own archival realm, a generally formulated selection-typology or subject-typology can be used to decide whether a specific recording is to be selected or erased!

But a subject-typology is not scientific ‘knowledge’; and there are other differences. However, the structure of the problem of the relationship between a generally formulated subject-typology and a specific, concrete decision to select or erase is the same as in the just mentioned sciences. Of course this does not mean that a decision to select or erase has the same degree of precision as an astronomical calculation of the orbit of Halley’s comet; a comparison between selection-decisions and weather-forecasts might be more proper. Selection is not, and cannot become, a science in the classical sense of the word - but the structure of the problem of the relationship between general and specific knowledge is identical in the sciences and in selection-work. When the structure is identical, then we are permitted to use the available philosophical and methodological scientific literature in so far as this literature is concerned with the structure of problems and not for instance with the nature of the objects to be analysed. Before taking up these matters it is important to solve the formulation problem, or rather the two interconnected problems, which appear in the selection process. As it is in the sciences, the case in our archival interest of knowledge is split in two different ways of thinking. One of these is systematic and general and is concerned with the formulation of the archive’s selection-typology or subject-typology, and the other is concerned with the problems of the specific decisions of selection. The selection problem can be formulated as follows: the problem of selection is the problem about the interconnection there is or ought to be between the more or less explicit general subject-typology and the specific selection-decisions. The subject typology need not be explicitly formulated-in a way it is just our general conception of what ‘ought’ to be selected.

An example of a short subject-typology could be:

1. Material of interest for contemporary history,
2. Biographical material concerning known personalities,
3. Ethnologically and culturally interesting material, and
4. Material of interest for the arts.

Now, one can ask, what is the condition of possibility for creating such a typology? What must necessarily be known before the typology can be formulated? The answer to these questions is of course that it is necessary to have a more or less conscious or clear conception of what it is essential to know about man, combined with a conception of the way in which the audiovisual material in the archive can be expected to contribute. Some of the most important aspects of the problem of selection are to be found in the thinking connected with formulation of the subject-typology. The distinction between essentials and inessentials, which in the typology is formulated in a general way and in relation to the archive’s purpose, rests on criteria derived from conceptions of a metaphysical character such as conceptions of ‘man’, of ‘society’, of ‘culture’ etc. It is in these concepts, which in our knowledge and actions work in a heuristic and not a deterministic way, that our personal ‘philosophy of history’ or our personal ‘metaphysic’ are to be found. All these concepts are often very vague and only partly consciously analysed, but nevertheless they are necessary and form the basis for our image of world. They are a kind of a priori, torso-like, but absolutely necessary total-image of our life-world, and in reality it is this flickering and unanalysed image, which is fundamental for our thinking knowledge, when we act, and when we select. It is the flickering, metaphysical image, which is behind both the formulation of the general subject-typology and the specific selection decisions. In the typology the image has been formulated in a general way - in the specific selection the image has the character of a heuristic basis for a decision. Everyone who has made decisions about essential/unessential has to find his arguments in these metaphysical conceptions if his selection decision is being criticized and therefore needs some kind of argument. It is an eventual critique, which makes clear the metaphysical character of selection work - and metaphysics does not mean pseudo-religious conceptions, but the common principles and concepts, which create coherence and integration in our thinking. Coherence and integration are the key words!

It can be seen therefore that the problem of selection is founded one kind of metaphysics; but it also has other philosophical aspects. One of these lies within theory of knowledge. One could say, that the metaphysical part of the problem is concerned with the answers to the question: what are the conditions of possibility for selections - what is the a priori in selection? But the theory of knowledge problem is concerned with the answers to the question: why must this material be selected and that erased? It is the structure or logic of thinking in practical selection work we are looking to find. How does the selector motivate a specific selection?

At this point the discussion can take advantage of the previously mentioned debate about the relationship between general and specific knowledge, between nomological and ontological knowledge. In the space available we can mention only a few elements in the dominant conception of the problem and some of the points of critique. The dominating school is positivism, and it is the positivistic conception which underlies what many Americans call ‘hard’ science’.

The literature about positivism is very large, but a classical representative is Carl G Hempel, whose articles The Function of General Laws in History, (1942) and Studies in the Logic of Explanation (1948) are worthy of reading. In short, the positivistic ideal is, that when you must explain an event, then it is necessary to split it up into several parts, so that every part can be explained by means of the general laws formulated within secure sciences. If, for instance, you must explain a specific traffic accident, the first thing to do is to establish the experiential data; influence of alcohol, braking distance, the specific traffic situation, mental condition of the driver, etc., and then you will investigate these data by means of the relevant sciences, which in the case will be: medical science, technical science, traffic-sociology, psychology and so on. The general knowledge from these sciences, which can be used, is called ‘covering laws’ because they are considered to cover the established facts. After the analysis of the facts by means of the respective sciences, the positivist nominates the sum of these separate explanations to be the explanation.

The same kind of procedure is involved when a selector motivates a specific selection by referring to it being ‘covered’ by one or often several categories in the subject-typology of the archive. But this kind of explanation suffers from great weaknesses and the critique of positivism is about to uncover some of them. A brief critique of positivistic theory of knowledge can be found in Maurice Mandelbaum’s article: The problem of covering laws, in History and theory, (1961), and a very profound critique can be found in one of the most exciting, modern philosophical works, Bernard Lonergan’s Insight. A study of human understanding, (1958).

The starting point for Lonergan’s theory of knowledge is the analysis of the event, which we call an insight. He is not interested in insight as a psychological phenomenon, but analyses the character of the increase of our knowledge, which is involved when we get an insight. For Lonergan it is, so to speak, the insight, which is the atoms of knowledge – for the positivists the atoms are verbally, formulated, elementary statements about what is considered the reality. There are of course many problems involved in this, but the point is, that the positivistic summing up of their many separate explanations involves an insight, an epistemological operation, which is overlooked by the positivists. The separate explanations of the mentioned traffic accident are: influence of alcohol, bad brakes, bad traffic conditions and a depressed driver, and the positivist considers it unproblematic to put a circle around all these separate explanations and to nominate the sum: The explanation!

What is overlooked is that the circle or summing up involves an increase of our knowledge, and therefore it must be motivated. The positivistic theory of knowledge is unable to motivate the summing up! There are perhaps secure sciences which can be used in explaining the separate parts of the event - but there is no science which can explain how the specific parts of the event are integrated again; remember the key words are coherence and integration! The positivistic theory of knowledge will only be able to create explanations in the form a long string of possible separate explanations. In the same way, a positivistic selector can only motivate his specific selections by referring to this or that point in the explicit subject-typology of the archive - that is the reason why a positivistic selector always has an explicit and very detailed subject-typology: he simply cannot live without it.

In short, the problem for the positivist is, that his theory of knowledge does not include principles by means of which coherence and integration can be created. In practical work there are no differences between a positivist and a non-positivist. The difference is in their philosophical and methodological understanding of what is involved in their practical work. To the positivist, the integrating principles of coherence are ‘unscientific’ or ‘subjective’ and are, therefore, not included in his theory of knowledge. But the selector with a fully developed self-awareness will recognise the integrating insights, which are involved as a necessary part of his work and these integrating principles are exactly the same metaphysical principles, which have been mentioned before. It is, therefore, a self-delusion to believe that a reference to some selection-typology can be used as a proper motivation for selection - unless of course the typology is so restricted that the problem of integration does not exist. Then the positivistic understanding can be used, because no integrations of separate explanations or motivations are involved. If, for instance, the archive must select every kind of material on a certain person, then it is obvious that the motivation problem does not exist. However, in that case the question remains as to whether selection is involved at all.

The problem of selection has only been solved in a very general way in the formulation of the archive’s subject-typology. The kind of general solution of the problem in the subject-typology cannot be directly used to solve specific problem of selection. Often you will have a feeling that the selection problem is buried in the typology. For instance, the typology contains the category ‘contemporary history’, but within this very category there are essentials and inessentials. And furthermore, the category contemporary history cannot be defined in relation to history as a science. It is defined in accordance with the nature of audiovisual material or the needs of the programme producing departments. This means that the criteria traditionally used in the science history cannot be directly applied. A typology can only in a very restricted sense be used to solve specific ad hoc selection problems. It can be used to give potential customers a general idea of what can be found in the archive, and it can be used to define in a formal way the working-purpose of the archive. It can also be used in the selection of material, which may be unambiguously described as in a particular category.

Application of a general typology presupposes an integrated insight into the elements of the specific problem of selection. Otherwise you will not be able to discover that the typologies or categories are involved in the specific problem - and in the same way you are unable to discover the specific integration of the categories. In short, the application of a general typology needs interpretation in every specific selection decision. The typology is only one out of several factors involved in specific selection work, and it must be stressed that the typology itself does not contain principles by means of which the integration can be motivated. The principle of integration is to be found in ourselves in the form of the aforementioned heuristic, pre-scientific, but necessary total-image, which is activated in the meeting between the selector and his specific selection problem.

Therefore selection is a kind of metaphysical achievement resulting in a creative, integrating insight and decision, and it is founded on a complicated combination of our more or less conscious and educated total-image, explicitly formulated general subject-typology and understanding of the specific selection-problem involved. Selection is not in the category objective, secure, hard science, but in the category meaningful, subjective action. For that reason a selection decision will always have to live with the possibility of being questioned. The selection decision is not a science but an action, which is open, creative and perhaps even playful - and long may it continue to be so. Objectivity in selection, for instance in the form of percentage selection or the impossible (in the long run) total selection will transform archives into stores and the creative, educated selection into automatic, mechanical sorting.

Therefore, in reply to the first of the two questions raised in the paper’s introduction, I am of the opinion that the problem about the philosophical conception of selection is best solved by conceiving selection as meaningful subjective action, always open to debate, and as a philosophical method I would recommend self-awareness in relation to the practical selection work based upon the epistemological phenomenon insight as understood by Bernard Lonergan.

The second question, which was raised in the introduction, concerned the methodological conception of selection. The problem has only been touched upon and space decrees only a very brief mention of the research-discipline, which will be staid the selector to make his practical work transparent. What I have in mind is the decision-making theory.

To recapitulate, I tried at the beginning to show the presence of a kind of metaphysical heuristic total-image, our subjective-reality, as a foundation for selection-work. This image was formulated in the general subject-typology as a description of what categories of material the archive must select to fulfil its purpose. The general subject-typology has the character of a normative description, however specific selections are not description, but decisions! The typology and the specific selection are two different ways of thinking about the same problem and that is why the problem of essential/unessential seems buried in the typology when you try to motivate specific selections by means of the typology. The typology is not a set of rules to be followed blindly; rather it is a kind of framework for creativity. The specific selection is a creative decision, and it is of course unwise not to use the large literature about this subject to reach a more profound understanding of what is involved in decisions.

Some of the fundamental works within the discipline are to be found in the general action theory, but the most directly usable works are strangely enough to be found in the special elaboration of the theory for analysis of political decision-making. Richard Snyder, Graham T Allison and John D Steinbruner ought to be mentioned and if you are interested in analysis of the concept meaningful subjective action, Alfred Schutz ought to be consulted. Space forbids me to enter into details of decision-making theory, but the self-understanding of the selector will be much improved by studying the decision-making theory’s analysis of the many very complicated factors involved in decisions, from the cultural blind spots, through the organisational forms of the archive itself and on to the individual psychology of the selector.

Understanding these factors cannot, of course, make selection objective but it can make the selection decisions less arbitrary - and the selection debate can profit from the definitions and the very differentiated concepts within the decision-theory. Another problem, which can be illuminated by decision-making theory, is the problem of differentiating between types of selection. Earlier in the paper I outlined the type of selection in my own archive, but there are of course a lot of other types - one of them I have referred to elsewhere as sorting. In the decision-theory there are at least six different paradigms or types, each of them characterizing a type of decision. For instance, there is an analytical paradigm, a cognitive paradigm and a cybernetic paradigm - the last one can, with advantage, be used to characterize the very simplified and automatic form of selection, which I have called sorting. But these differentiations and refinements will come in connection with the intensified selection debate, which we can expect in the years to come.

Poul von Linstow is the Radio Archivist of Denmark Radio, Copenhagen.
This paper was given at the Brussels Conference in 1982.

To reiterate: an archivist is usually the opposite of an individual who makes selections. By nature the archivist is striving for an ever-growing collection; including whatever he can get; excluding as little as possible. Why should he then apply selection to the collection of recordings ready to enter his vaults? There could be three possible reasons:

1. Lack of space
   New technical developments will eventually allow smaller formats for records, yet space will always be an argument in favour of selection. Audio-records also demand certain standards of air-conditioning which may involve a considerable investment of money.
2. Lack of staff and equipment for preservation
   Preservation may consist only of keeping air-conditioning under control and a regular check on the stability of the records in storage. But old and deteriorating records have to be copied, involving time-consuming operations, sophisticated equipment and a quantity of blank carriers.
3. Lack of staff for cataloguing
   The accessibility of the recordings in our archives is of course very much dependent on the quality of the catalogues we are going to produce. Even a simple catalogue of audio recordings should be based upon standardized title descriptions. For example, the ISBD, while spoken word recordings demand an additional summary of the contents. The descriptions should be classified according to some system using keywords derived from an authority file such as the one produced by the Library of Congress. Cataloguing is, therefore, a time-consuming affair.

Selection should be seen as a means to diminish investments, exploitation costs and above all the considerable costs of staff necessary for preservation and cataloguing.

The term selection implies a procedure based on the general policy of the archive and certain criteria within the limits of the policy. What criteria can we establish without hampering future research and destroying recordings which, in a hundred years or more, could have become interesting or even indispensable? Are there methods to avoid disaster and to protect ourselves from blame by our successors? It is doubtful whether such criteria can be found but we should try to formulate a few points which can be applied without too much risk. Apart from obvious things like the discarding of dubbings or recordings of very bad quality, the following should be taken into account when an archive begins to define selection criteria.

1. The specific qualities of the medium
   Sound archives are collecting music and spoken recordings or are concentrating on one of the many other fields. Spoken word can, of course, also be preserved in writing or in print. It is, however, not really possible to convey on paper variations in tone, laughter, sighs, chuckles, interruptions and intervals-in short, non-verbal expressions. This does not mean that one has to preserve every recording of spoken word. We should restrict ourselves to records, which contain medium-specific information. So many recordings of speeches by official persons, made entirely in accordance with the policy of their government, are in fact second-rate sources which do not add significantly to the knowledge stored in traditional archives of written and printed records.

   All of this means that we should concentrate on recordings made without previous preparation such as live-interviews, discussions and improvised talks; in other words, recordings, which enrich already existing, printed reports in the daily papers and official documents.

   Medium- specific qualities apply also to music recordings, since such recordings cannot be replaced by printed music in any way. Thus the first criterion will seldom apply to music, because it is by nature medium-specific and irreplaceable.
    

2. The division of work between archives
   Most spoken word archives are in fact specialized institutions, concentrating on restricted fields, and usually there is only a small overlap with other institutions. If there is duplication, as is sometimes the case with broadcast sound archives and research archives outside the radio, it is there because radio archives are not able to provide a service outside their broadcasting institutions. However, the general policy of archives should be very clear about the limitations of their own collection as well as others and selection policy should take account of these limitations. This applies equally to spoken word and music.
    
3. The length and completeness of recordings
   Selection has also to do with the length and completeness of recordings. This does not mean that only extensive and complete records are valuable, because a very short abstract from an early broadcast may be worth many long recordings of later date. In the case of spoken word it is particularly difficult to decide to what extent fragmentary recordings are useful. News broadcasts, for instance, which are transmitted by the dozen every day, usually consist of many comments and few authentic sounds. They are useless for research and for most educational applications. On the other hand complete recordings of live interviews belong to the more important part of every archives collection and must certainly not be eliminated because of a too strict selection policy. In the case of music, complete recordings are preferable in most cases.

The above-mentioned points give us something upon which to base a policy. In short: are our recordings adding to the traditional written media or are they worthwhile because of their specific qualities as sound records? Are they held elsewhere in the country or abroad, or are they too short and too fragmentary to provide useful information? Criteria along these lines will in general not impede any future research.

There are a few additional points, which are more risky, but can do little harm to our descendants in the world of sound archives.

4. Single records or complete collections
Most records, be they spoken word or music, belong to series or to collections brought together with a specific aim. In many cases records derive their importance from the mere fact that they belong to a collection, while single records without any relation to other recordings stand apart and may be less valuable. The recording of a well known Haydn Symphony by a certain orchestra under a particular director is of course different from the same symphony recorded as part of the complete series by Antal Dorati and the Philharmonia Hungarica.

5. The importance of the subject: estimation of value
Frequently spoken word recordings have been made because at the time people seemed to be interested in the subject. Radio broadcasts, in particular, tend to be of temporal value, fashionable or tied up with sudden bursts of sensational curiosity. Archivists should be able after some time to distinguish between temporal and more enduring subjects. There are risks in this approach, because any tape may contain the one and only recording which eventually proves to be of outstanding value but, as long as we deem selection to be necessary, the subject-criterion provides another weapon against pollution of our precious collections. Archivists of music recordings may easily find parallels within their field of interest.

6. The importance of the subject: social history
There is a tendency to apply social sciences and historical research to daily life, the life of the man in the street, the unemployed, workers in factories or minorities in great cities. Aside from the inevitable exaggeration of this movement, it is nowadays a matter of common understanding that historians and archivists have spent too much time on outstanding events and very important persons, and that they should change their course. While a lot of documents cover the dealings of the so-called establishment, the number of records related to the circumstances of living and the cultural interests of the public at large is relatively small. Selection should take care of this distinction and place less value on outstanding persons and more on social history, at the cost of our customary collections of voice portraits of VIP’s, who as a mater of fact are well prepared for eternal life anyway.

Further to this summary of the criteria of selection in general terms, it should be indicated that for each specific subject of research, whether music or one of the many fields of spoken word, the archivist may develop his own criteria within general parameters, dependent upon the policy of the archive and the point of view within that field research. However, it is not easy to use more specific criteria without grave risks of the wrong kind of perfectionism. General directives and a well-developed common sense are better remedies than so-called scientific criteria which, in practice, spoil much of the fun of collecting and do not really add to a well-balanced archive collection.

Before moving on to the process of selection, a few preliminary explanations are required. It should be stressed that this paper has to do with spoken word, although it may also apply to music. Also, the figures used by way of explanation about the effectiveness of selection are based upon both experience and speculation. If they have any significance it is because they may stimulate the discussion and provide a kind of model for calculating. Lastly, the article is restricted to matters of personnel, not investments and costs in the material sphere, because the costs of equipment and materials are usually far less forbidding than the costs involved in hiring staff.

Finally the selection process has been related to the cataloguing. Records which have been selected for further use will, in any case, pass through the cataloguing process in order to become accessible. It is, however, doubtful if all of them will also go through a stage of copying and further preservation. After passing the selection process many recordings will indeed return to storage without further preservation. Including preservation in this calculation model would complicate things unnecessarily.

The selection process consists of a series of actions which lead to the decision to send the collection or the single record for further processing through the archive (positive selection), or to exclude it from further processing or even to destroy it (negative selection). Within that kind of process there are many possibilities, differing in degree of intensity relative to the needs of the archive and the kind of input of records in the archive. At one end of the scale we find coarse-mesh selection, and at the other end fine-mesh selection. Coarse-mesh selection is the evaluation of complete collections of recordings without going into each record specifically. Fine-mesh selection is based upon a record-for-record approach necessary, for instance, in case of probable copying, bad technical quality, etc.

In the first case the selection process is usually not very time consuming, which means that the ratio of the size of the collection and the time spent on selection is advantageous for the archive. However, coarse-mesh selection is risky whenever the collection is not already well defined and well documented. If this is not the case, one may end up with a lot of rubbish and a few really valuable recordings.

In considering fine-mesh selection it is worthwhile to go into the question of effectiveness of selection in more detail. The process of selection with a fine-mesh approach consists of several stages:

1. Getting the record from storage;
2. Inspecting the container, the sleeve, the label and the eventual documentation with the record;
3. Listening to the complete record or to part of it, and/or studying an eventual detailed list of items of the recording;
4. Filling in a selection-form with headings for a few primary dates;
5. Sending the records back to storage;
6. Evaluating the findings and taking a decision about positive or negative selection. Completing the selection form.

Stages 1 through 5 can be described as a pre-cataloguing process because, in the case of positive selection, the selection-form can, amongst other things, serve as a tool for cataloguing proper.

Let us compare a few imaginary records of ten-, thirty- and sixty-minutes duration by running them through the selection stages mentioned above and estimating the time taken for each stage. In doing this we can also make a distinction between a selection process in which the record is listened to completely, for instance in the case of dubious dubbings or a great many separate items (maximum intensity), and a process in which only part of the record is listened to (minimum intensity). See Table1.

Duration of recordings	10m		30m		60m
Stages of the selection process	min.	max.	min.	max.	min.	max.
1. from storage	3m	3m	3m	3m	3m	3m
2. inspection	5m	5m	5m	5m	5m	5m
3. listening	5m	10m	10m	30m	20m	60m
4. filling in form	5m	5m	5m	5m	5m	5m
5. to storage	3m	3m	3m	3m	3m	3m
6. evaluation and completing from	5m	5m	5m	5m	5m	5m
Total of selection process	26m	31m	31m	51m	41m	81

Table1: stages and durations of two different selection processes for recordings of three different durations (in minutes)

It is not insignificant that the only variable figures in this table concern the time necessary for a minimum or maximum listening to the recording. All other figures are, generally speaking, the same for every kind of record. (The storage time has been limited to three minutes each because one should, of course, handle a group of records all in one.) There may be some differences between the one and the other single recording, but such variations are not significant for our comparison. It must be noted, however, that part of the pre-cataloguing process does not have to be repeated during the cataloguing process proper. We should, therefore, deduct some time from the total duration of the selection process in order to make a comparison with the cataloguing process more meaningful. But a suitable cataloguing process should include the listening stage, particularly in view of the production of a summary and the determination of keywords. Only a few data listed on the selection form might then serve to speed up the cataloguing process and you cannot subtract more than five minutes on the average from each of the total times mentioned in the table.

We may, in any, case safely conclude that

if selection does not result in the de-selection of a certain number of records, it will only add considerable additional loss of time to the existing lack of time of the staff.

The duration of the selection may very from twenty to eighty minutes or more per record, depending upon the duration of the recording and the amount of listening we decide to do.

In order to underline the point, let us take a close look at the cataloguing process and list the stages involved in the process with their estimated durations (a simplified reproduction of the total process). See Table 2.

Here also there is a relationship between the duration of the recording and the total duration of the process. The variable is in the summary stage which varies according to the duration of the recording because a longer recording will usually be more time consuming than a shorter one.

In comparison with the cataloguing process, selection takes a lot of time. If we put together the minimum selection figures table 1 and the cataloguing figures from table 2 and subtract five minutes from the pre-cataloguing phase, Table 3 applies.

To make the comparison work for a group of records ready for a fine-mesh selection process followed by the cataloguing process, let us take a group of one hundred records with an average duration of 30m per recording (resulting in 26m for minimum selection and 106m for cataloguing). Consider that the records pass the selection with flying colours, so that all of them get catalogued in the end. The total duration of processing these records through selection (minimum intensity) and cataloguing would then amount to the following: see Table 4.

One person, working effectively seven hours per day, would thus spend more than six days on selection and more than twenty-five days on cataloguing those hundred records.

In this case the selection process, seen from the point-of-view of the selecting archivist, was entirely without result. But when does selection become effective? In other words: where is the break-even figure at which it is to the advantage of the archive to process records through the selection procedure and above which selection is a waste of time, indeed only adding to the problems of the archive?

Take the following supposition:

As long as we succeed in keeping the total time involved in the selection and cataloguing of a certain number of records equal to the time which would have been used for cataloguing without previous selection, there is an advantage for the archive.

Even if we do not win time during the selection and cataloguing processes, we will have less to store and eventually less to preserve. And we are not losing any time by selecting carefully.

However, if we succeed in making the total time involved in selection and cataloguing less than the time originally involved in cataloguing proper without previous selection, then selection becomes even more advantageous. But as soon as selection and cataloguing time add up to a total higher than the cataloguing time without previous selection, we pass the break-even point in the wrong direction. Then the archivist should decide whether problems of space and preservation might counter-balance the loss in time on the selection/cataloguing side.

Now what does the break-even point mean in the case of our hundred records? Taking the figure of 176h 40m involved in the cataloguing of those records (again: 30m average duration, 106m cataloguing per record), if we are going to put those 100 records through the selection process and if we are only going to catalogue the records which were positively selected, we should nevertheless stay within the limit of those 176h 40m in order not to lose time. To find the break-even point in this case becomes a very easy procedure.

We have to go through the selection process anyway for all hundred records. As we have seen this process takes up 43h 20m (again: 30m average duration which means 26m selection per record). Now we only have to subtract those 43h 20m from the 176h 40m mentioned above to find the time which we can safely use for cataloguing proper.

Thus we have 133h 20m left for cataloguing. As long as we stick to 106 minutes per record for the cataloguing of each of these 100 records, we are then able to catalogue about 75 records without going beyond the break-even point. In other words:

There is a break-even point below which it is even more advantageous to select and above which the archive may lose extra time by selection. The break-even point can be found when one subtracts the time involved with the selection process from the total time, which would have been involved with cataloguing all records, in question if there had been no selection. The remaining time is left for cataloguing and should be divided by the time necessary for each separate record in order to find the total number of records, which can safely be considered for cataloguing.

An archivist should in this case instruct his staff to de-select at least one quarter of the pile of one hundred records in order to make the selection a useful tool in the process of saving staff time and money. This assumption is based upon a selection process with minimum intensity. More intensity means a deteriorating ratio, which may even go beyond fifty-fifty.

100 audio-recordings of different duration – fine-mesh selection with different intensity

 

A greater percentage of de-selected records is more advantageous to the archive in terms of timesaving. A lesser percentage means greater loss of time and makes selection disadvantageous in terms of timesaving.

Table 6: minimum negative selection with recordings of different duration

The purpose of this exercise in sound archive arithmetic is, of course, not to deliver a ready-made calculation model for all kinds of selection. It is, at best, a clue to the solution for a small part of the total selection problem. Establishing reliable and effective criteria is probably a much more difficult problem to solve.

However, to get back to the beginning of the paper, it is important for any archive to establish the general policy with regard to the limits of its collection. Only when it is apparent that, even within those limits, the archive simply cannot cope with the amounts of records pouring in, it should consider a more energetic selection procedure. Even then, it is better to try a kind of coarse-mesh selection in order to lose as little time as possible on that stage of the total processing of records through the archive.

If, however, records enter the archive without any cohesion amongst themselves or without any connection with the collection already present, it is necessary to apply a fine-mesh selection. In this case, it is advisable to consider the ratio between the time necessary for selection and the time involved in further processing through the archive including the cataloguing process. A fine-mesh selection, which does not result in at least one quarter of the records being thrown out, can eventually end in a bad result in terms of costly hours. See table 6.

One final consideration. Negative selection does not always have to end with the destruction of the records. If space is no problem, one can, of course, store them in some part of the archive where they can do the least harm. One can also offer them to another archive. However, sometime it is definitely better to pull oneself together and have the records either thrown out or destroyed. If some archivists here or there still believes in miracles, the author is the last one to attempt to awaken them from their dreams. However, we can be very certain that the longer we wait, the less money will be available and the more our conscience will bother us. A well-established selection policy, consistently carried out, is the best solution.

Rolf Schuursma was the librarian of the Erasmus University, Rotterdam.
This paper was given at the IASA conference in Budapest in 1981.

The basic working document being used as the framework for this paper is the selection policy developed by the US National Archives called the General Records Schedule 21. (See Appendix A, p.58) This document provides the selection criteria applied to US government produced or acquired audiovisuals. This policy document was the work of several committees over the years and applies to all AV materials considered for permanent retention in the US National Archives. It includes, for the basis of this discussion, a section on sound recordings and related textual documentation.

At the outset several general statements concerning archival appraisal and selection should be examined in order to establish a common structure for discussion. Appraisal of material for archival value is perhaps the most challenging of the tasks facing the contemporary archivist. The decision to destroy material is irrevocable; the temptation to save all documentation is untenable. We must choose. We must make judgements. We must make selections. This holds true for audio documents as well as paper archives. Either we judge what sound recordings are going to be worth to the future, or any selection is meaningless. Nothing has value of itself. Value in an object is wholly dependent upon the existence of persons attaching value to it.

As Helen Harrison has already indicated in the introduction; but it bears repeating:

“If we do not select with reasonable care then what is the point in spending resources of time and money documenting, storing and preserving material which is not of archival value.”

The task of selecting archivally valuable material, specifically sound recordings, is a difficult one. It is one of identifying, among the voluminous mass of material being created on a national and regional level, the specific types and series of recorded sound materials that are worthy of preservation. It is the function of

“reducing to the irreducible minimum the records (sound recordings) that are needed for research uses.” (Theodore R Schellenberg, “The Selective Retention of Federal Records of Continuing Value”, October 1963, unpublished, National Archives Library).

Thus we must accept the assumption that certain sound recordings or types, classes, or series of sound recordings can be judged to have enduring archival value and that the principle of using selection techniques to choose such material is a basic and necessary function of any recorded sound archives, whether on a national level or a specialized field such as a broadcast or a music archive. (American Archivist, vol. 20 No. 4 October 1957, “Archival Sampling”, by Paul Lewinson.) Without a selection policy there would simply be collections of material but no archives. It is through selective appraisal that many documents are disposed of and a few, of enduring permanent value, are retained. Those retained constitute the archives.

A number of factors enter into the judgement that documents have permanent value and appraisal tests may be applied in various ways. This was the reason for choosing the title of this paper because it suggests a knowledge on the part of the archivist or curator which comes from experience, much like that of a skilled craftsman. Appraisal cannot be done in a vacuum and definitely does not depend on the archivist’s background, education, and general work experience. Yet, on the other hand, there can be an element of science in appraisal and some guidelines which are generally safe to follow and provide touchstones or a yardstick by which to measure a decision. Certain audio documents whether individually, in series, or groups should undoubtedly be preserved; others can generally be discarded without great concern; and then there is a large area which is in limbo. It is in this grey area that general guidelines are especially helpful to the archivist of recorded sound. This is where one combines the “art” of appraisal with guidelines or the “science” of appraisal, and where one can begin to feel that an effective selection of material has begun.

The selection criteria that is used and the tests that are applied vary greatly among different sound archives depending on their acquisition policy and the objectives for which the material is to be used. But there are general selection criteria and guidelines common to the majority of sound archives and institutions with recorded sound collections that could be the basis for a common international working document. IASA should continue this dialogue and continue to take the lead in developing a statement of selection principles for sound archives.

Before outlining some common criteria for selection, we should take a brief look at the selection policy developed by the National Archives for its AV material. For it is here that the experience of this author resides and we may see some criteria applicable on a general level. Note that the US National Archives is responsible by law for preserving materials that document the functions and activities of the Federal Government and its history, and that while we select for review all of the output of the government agencies, the archives ultimately retains only about 1% of the paper records and perhaps 20%-30% of the AV materials. As with any public archives the vast majority of materials created and accumulated by a federal government such as that in the US have only temporary administrative, legal, or fiscal values and are eventually destroyed when no longer needed by their creating agencies. A small portion, however, are never destroyed. These documents are appraised and selected by archivists as having enduring historical value and are eventually physically transferred to the legal custody of the US National Archives and preserved. It is in this selection process that the general selection policy in Appendix A is the most useful to the government agencies and to the archivists within the National Archives who do the appraisal.

GRS 21 specifies which types of AV records, including sound recordings, are to be offered for evaluation and selection and specifies certain categories of AV materials, which agencies can automatically dispose of without the prior approval of the National Archives. From the categories relating to sound recordings it can be seen that the National Archives collection is one of unique unpublished sound recordings as opposed to commercially produced and released multiple copy recordings. It is a collection on a national, federal wide basis, of speeches, interviews, actualities, news, public affairs, radio documentaries and spots, oral history, military recordings and information type programs. The schedule also specifies, based on other regulations, that when AV records are offered and transferred certain physical components or elements are required to be deposited for proper preservation. For sound recordings this means in effect that government agencies or donors of government related material must submit the original or earliest generation copy of each sound recording and one copy if possible for reference purposes.

Thus, using these general selection criteria as a base, and also in the actual appraisal process in the National Archives, we have often refined these criteria to apply to specific collections of recorded material, especially large collections of donated material that were not created by the federal government but which have documentation that relates closely to government activities and interests. For example, refer to Appendix B Guidelines for Evaluation of the ABC Radio Collection (P. 63) - a collection of some 27,000 discs and broadcast tape recordings made by the ABC radio network dating from 1943 to 1971. A selection was made of these recordings based on the selection criteria as outlined and developed from GRS 21 experience. As the summary reference report shows, this collection was briefly surveyed prior to its acceptance and it was felt the entire collection should be taken for several reasons:

• It appeared to be primarily news and public affairs programming;
• It had been maintained by the radio news division of ABC;
• It had to be removed from the building it was stored in within a month because the building was to be demolished.

A situation that will undoubtedly be familiar to most readers.

After acceptance and based upon a written agreement between National Archives and ABC Radio a final selection reduced the collection from 27,000 to about 20,000 items. The recordings that were weeded out to accord with the guidelines are in the process of being offered to another institution once approval is received from the broadcasting company as the donor.

This is the working process that occurs at the National Archives when appraising and selecting sound recordings for archival retention. From this we can move on to a general policy reflecting the mission of the institution; the evaluation and application of selective criteria, often tailored to the particular collection or group of sound recordings being appraised for permanent retention. In summary, therefore, appraisal moves from the general, to specific, to specialized criteria for collections. From this brief discussion of the importance of appraisal and the inevitability of selection, and after seeing how selection criteria is applied in the US National Archives, it is possible to suggest some general principles and guidelines of selection that can be considered common to all sound archives. For example:

1. Archives acquiring sound recordings have an obligation to ensure preservation by selecting the original or best quality copy available.
2. Appraisal should be done according to a well-defined selection policy, whether based upon the national production, if a national archives, or for a specialized purpose if an individual archives, or for a specialized purpose if an individual archive such as broadcasting, or musical genre. This means and requires more than just a statement that an institution will collect material of national historical significance. This is the point in which careful appraisal should be emphasised before acceptance. This is the time at which local principles and values can be applied more rigidly. The best way to control the content of a collection is to specify as clearly as possible the selection policy that will be applied.
3. In developing the appraisal and selection criteria based upon policy, a sound archives should avoid acquiring sound recordings that duplicate material held in other archival repositories. This avoids a redundancy of source material, allocates preservation funds efficiently, and eliminates wasteful expenditures of staff time in cataloguing and preserving duplicate material.

From these three general principles we can suggest some common guidelines or signposts for evaluation and selection of sound recordings.

Uniqueness - That is the degree of rarity of the recordings. This requires some investigation and assumes knowledge of recording history and genres by the appraiser. Uniqueness involves determination of the extent to which the information in a recording is physically or substantially duplicated elsewhere.

Age - The age or date span of the sound recordings, or group of recordings will often be a natural guideline as to the value and importance. It should be recorded that age is a relative term depending upon the type of sound recording being evaluated. For example, instantaneous disc recordings of the late 1920s and early 1930s of radio broadcasts are rare and have historical value because there are so few, and would be appraised and selected quite differently from say commercial 78s from the same time period. The same test can be applied to selecting the recording output of certain record labels governed by the period of their existence, which may be quite recent. Survival rates must also be taken into account since man-made and natural disasters have created scarcities in sound recordings for particular time periods. Thus it is common sense that the appraiser working with voluminous sound recordings of recent origin will develop appraisal criteria different from those of an archivist engaged in seeking out and preserving early cylinder recordings.

Volume - This can be a crucial factor in appraisal selection. Faced with the massive quantities of recorded sound material which can be received in a national sound archives, the sound archivist must evaluate at the collection level, or at best the series level. There will simply not be enough time to arrive at a value judgement of each recording being offered. For these reasons it important to develop a specific set of evaluation criteria taking into account the administrative and historical development of the entire group or collection of recordings.

Form - The physical form of the sound recording can be a factor in establishing criteria for appraisal and selection. Here the appraiser must determine whether he is dealing with originals, or copies, or copies of copies in various recorded formats. It touches upon the questions of origin and source, recording generation, or even reissues. With originals the type of physical format will often be a factor in determining preservation costs and priorities. For example a collection acetate base audio tapes, mini-cassettes or field cylinders, will require different handling and preservation work on a higher priority than a collection of relatively stable vinyl disc pressings.

Accessibility - The research value of sound recordings depends on their accessibility. Perpetual, indefinite or long-term restrictions on access and use significantly reduce the value of a collection and could be a factor on determining whether or not it is accepted. In addition, accessibility could be hampered, impeded or obscured by disarrangement or peculiarities of arrangement in the recorded sound collection being appraised. This may require rearrangement back to the original order, if it can be determined; or in exceptional case a new arrangement in order to make the recordings useful to researchers. This makes it important for a proper appraisal to have paper documentation offered with the recorded sound items.

Relationship to other recorded sound holdings - The sound recordings being appraised should be evaluated against the total holdings already accessioned by the institution. Gaps in existing archival series or time periods, or record label runs are a major consideration in doing a thorough appraisal.

Preservation costs - The cost of staff, and the degree of technical expertise and equipment needed to preserve or restore audio documents must be considered as a selection criteria. Information of a permanent value recorded on impermanent non-archival media presents a serious and expensive problem for sound archives. Such costs must be a factor in determining whether it is worth keeping the sound recordings in their original form once an acceptable archival quality copy has been made and it has been determined that no intrinsic value remains in the recordings themselves.

Having elaborated some common principles and guidelines of selection, let us now look at some selection criteria or approaches to criteria for thought and discussion.

Given the scope and amount of commercially produced recordings accumulating yearly (current industry figures estimate that in 1982 2600 LPs and 2800 45s were released by American record companies alone), as well as the output of unpublished recordings from radio programmes and of oral history materials being produced worldwide. Wherever possible a selection scheme on a national level should be considered similar to one advocated in a symposium on selection held by FIAF in 1980; and perhaps this should be geared in stages, with one generation of archivists reviewing the selections of their predecessors in order to deselect materials judged unimportant after the passage of 50 or more years. To do this, greater co-operation is needed among established institutional sound archives in various countries that have recorded sound archives and perhaps even the development of specialized archives working in concert with the existing institutions in a co-ordinated network, to document various types of recorded music and speech. Some of those networks are already being nurtured, for example in the US, where the five leading institutions with the largest collections of sound recordings are working together under ARSC (The Association of Recorded sound Collections) to create an index to their holdings of 78 recordings. Such an index will be a prime tool, not only for researchers, but also for appraisers to use to locate sound recordings and in developing selection criteria, at each institution, applying the test of uniqueness, allocating preservation monies, and eliminating duplication.

It is useful at this point to consider the question of reappraisal and further selection and weeding of sound recordings already on deposit in our sound archives. It is often the case with the collection of all AV materials including those of recorded sound, that material is accessioned, acquired, or gathered over the years without ever having a proper evaluation. Historically, many archival collections have been formed as reference collections for one purpose or another and only later have they evolved into an archive with preservation materials and responsibilities. Thus it is a necessity that we must consider re-examining, reappraising, and re-evaluating sound recordings already accessioned and sitting undisturbed and deteriorating on our shelves. And let us face it, the longer they are there, the more they gain a cloak of respectability. They become old friends and we seldom think to question why they are there in the first place.

Reappraisal may be necessary because, perhaps, the original appraisal was faulty. Material was thought to be worthy of accessioning, when in fact, by the standards of the time of appraisal they were not. Or the appraiser judged the material correctly by the appraisal standards of the time, but standards have changed and by today’s standards they are not worth keeping. But most often, as we know, material is accessioned without any really careful appraisal. Demands on time, shortage of staff, pressure from the agency or donor, the particular and, perhaps, peculiar collecting focus or mania of certain archivists, officials and administrators or the lack of a well-defined acquisition policy all contribute to the fact that we have collections of sound recordings occupying space in our archives that need to be re-evaluated. Reappraising is most important, especially prior to spending preservation funds or going through the cataloguing procedure. It is possible to perform a full reappraisal or in some instances put forth a set of guidelines that can be used for dealing with previously accessioned materials. The National Archives has put together a draft document, a compilation of criteria distilled from the selection criteria in GRS 21 and on-job experience, and formatted into a physical format category and subject matter category. Refer to Appendix C .

The reappraisal suggestion is a healthy one for any recorded sound collection and should help to determine the priorities for preservation in different collections of sound recordings. It may be heretical to say so but all accessioned sound recordings in our collections are not of equal value; why then should they be given equal preservation treatment or even equal storage space. There are different preservation options available. Perhaps it is time to abandon the idea of retaining all sound recordings in the best possible quality, in the original speed and track format, in exchange for the ability to keep quantities of material readily available for access and reference use. It might mean in effect that we have to consider the trade-off between preservation according to high quality standard (i.e. expensive) of a small amount of rigidly selected material versus a system of conservation and retention for the records, sacrificing quality for the ability to retain a maximal portion of the recorded sound heritage of the twentieth century. After all, preservation techniques are really designed to extend public access are they not, to a public remote to our time if not geographically remote so that our successors have as much right to the products of our culture as we do.

A related item is also to consider the application of the concept of determining whether or not archival recordings have “intrinsic value”. What is meant by this term is simply that all materials appraised for retention in archives, including sound recordings, do not have to be accepted and continue to be preserved in the original format. Some archival materials have intrinsic value, others do not. This means that applying the test of intrinsic value (and for the characteristics and qualities needed the reader is referred to Appendix D “Intrinsic value in archival materials”), applying the test can enable the appraiser to determine and recommend that once an acceptable archival quality copy is made then there is no obligation to continue to preserve the original recordings. This concept is worth considering for sound recordings. It can be applied at the time of appraisal and selection and restoration techniques are used on material that is archivally valuable for its information content alone.

For example, let us suppose you are offered a collection of audiotape recordings from the 1950s recorded on deteriorating acetate based tape stock. The appraiser applies his selection criteria for archival value including the test as to whether the recordings to be kept from the collection have any intrinsic value. It the archive items do not have any of the qualities or characteristics such as unique physical form or features; no aesthetic or artistic quality; no value for exhibits; no authenticity problem; no direct association with famous people, events or things; and so on, then the appraiser can recommend the original acetate recording be transferred to a new archivally accepted medium (whatever that may be) of equal quality and the original recordings can be considered for disposal.

Every archivist in a recorded sound collection would find it easy to pick out those groups of recordings that have an obvious intrinsic value and should be kept in their original form. We all have our versions of Mapleson cylinders, or Nixon White House tapes, where authenticity requires the originals to be kept; or our examples of kinetoscope cylinders -special or unique collections, which must be kept.

The concept and test of intrinsic value can be of most help in determining the retention or rejection of large groups and series of sound recordings where only the information is of value. An example of this would be the ABC radio collection of 27,000 discs already discussed; applying the criteria of intrinsic value to any part of this collection one would conclude that there are no recording of intrinsic value in that collection where any of the actual recording would have to be kept in original format once copies of archival quality had been made. National collections all have this type of material, thousands and thousands of hours on instantaneous discs and tapes, long-playing reference formats and mini-format cassettes of meeting and sessions of government legislatures and law-making bodies (whether national or international such as the united nations), or thousands of hours of certain radio series on glass-acetate transcription discs. Once this type of material has been re-recorded and preserved in an acceptable format according to archival standards there is no value in keeping and preserving the original material, thus avoiding costly conservation, restoration and storage costs.

Finally another technique and selection tool, which could be utilized more often, is that of archival sampling. This is a valid technique in archival appraisal, which is often easy to apply to voluminous groups or collections of permanently valuable sound recordings. The classic definition of archival sampling is “Sampling of archives consists in the selection of some part of a body of homogeneous records (files) so that some aspect of an organization’s or government’s work or the information received or developed by that organization or government may be represented or illustrated thereby” (Lewinson, “Archival Sampling”). Sampling is appropriate and has been used by archivists for years on large series of paper material, case files, registration and application files, correspondence files and so on. The same sampling philosophy and technique can be more widely used as selection criteria for recorded sound materials. For example large series of transcripts of radio broadcasts or recoded monitoring of radio broadcasts, or large series of recordings put out by broadcasting organizations such as Voice of America or the BBC. The aim of this technique is to carry out an archival (not statistical) sample on a body of material when the total volume is very large compared with the importance of the content and the degree of research interest in the subject matter, or put another way, “If it is inconceivable that all can be kept, but undesirable that none should be”.

Sampling is something which is already being applied in the broadcasting area. The Public Television Archives of the Public Broadcasting System has a selection criteria which states:

“With regard to program series, the Archives will generally preserve the first and final episodes and such other episodes as are necessary to document changes in plot, setting, characterization, technique, etc. In the case of daily series, a full week of programmes will also be selected. Where series run for more than a season, each season will be considered as a separate entity in order to ensure a full record of the programs over their full span of time.”

It is also interesting to note that the Public Television Archives have ten-year appraisal and reappraisal reviews for long-term value and significance. If material fails the review after ten years it is de-accessioned.

The CBC, Museum of Broadcasting, and American Radio and Television Archives at the Library of Congress are all using and considering methods of selection of broadcast programming. The BBC Sound Archives typically selects and retains only 2% of its yearly output ¹. What has been done for broadcasting can be applied in all sound archives.

---

1. [Note added in 2010] Digital storage now allows the BBC Sound Archives to retain 100% of output.

As sound archivists we should all become more fully aware of what is being created now in our particular countries and areas of collecting interest, and how it is being created. We are so often occupied with collecting what ought to have been selected and preserved in previous years that we ignore and fail to take into account material which is currently being generated. We need that are being created before they are offered for inclusion in our institutional archives. This will help make what is often now a most difficult task, a much simpler one for those archival appraisers who follow in our footsteps.

Leslie Waffen is an archivist in the Motion Picture, Sound and Video Branch of the National Archives and Records Service, Washington DC.
This paper was first given at the IASA conference in Washington DC, 1983.

• Association for the Study of Canadian Radio & Television. “The need for preserving Canada’s TV and Radio programming”. Association of Canadian Archivists:1980.
• Bauer, G. Phillip. “The Appraisal of Current and Recent Records”. National Archives Staff Information Circular No.13. Washington: National Archives, 1946.
• Brichford, Maynard. “Archives and Manuscripts: Appraisal and Accessioning”. Basic Manual Series. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1977.
• Eckersley, Timothy. “The Selection of Recording for Permanent Retention in the BBC Sound Archives”. Phonographic Bulletin (May 1974) No.9, pp.9-12.
• Harrison, Helen. “Selection of Sound Material for Current and Future Use.” Phonographic Bulletin (November 1981) No. 31, pp. 14-16.
• Heins, Ernst. “Selective vs. Unselective Recording and Archiving”. Phonographic Bulletin (November 1982) No.34, pp.55-60.
• Johnson, David J. “Appraisal of Public Records” in Records Appraisal, Occasional Paper No.1 (January 1976), Michigan Archival Association, pp.7-24.
• Kromnow, Ake. “Appraisal of contemporary records”. VIII International Congress on Archives Papers. Washington: General Services Administration, 1976.
• Lewinson, Paul. “Archival Sampling”. American Archivist (October 1957) , vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 291-312.
• National Archives. “Intrinsic value in archival materials” staff information paper No.21. Washington: National Archives and Records Service, 1982. (see p. 68)
• Rapport, Leonard. “No Grandfather clause: Reappraising Accessioned Records”. Prologue: Journal of the National Archives (Spring 1981) vol.13, No.1, pp.49-55.
• Scharlau, Ulf. “Selection in Radio Sound Archives: A problem of Methods of Documentation”. Phonographic Bulletin (October 1981) No.31, pp.33-35.
• Schellenberg, Theodore R.“ The Selective Retention of Continuing Value”. Unpublished article. Washington: National Archives Library, October 1963.
• Schellenberg, Theodore R. The Appraisal of Modern Public Records, National Archives Bulletin No.8. Washington: National Archives and Records Service, 1956.
• Schuursma, Rolf. “Principles of Selection in Sound Archives” Phonographic Bulletin (August 1974) no.9, pp.7-8 and Phonographic Bulletin (May 1975) no.11, pp. 12-19.
• Schuursma, Rolf. “Problems of Selection in Research Sound Archives. Phonographic Bulletin (November 1981) no.31, pp.17-27.

GENERAL RECORDS SCHEDULE 21

Audiovisual Records

SCOPE

This schedule covers audiovisual and related records created by or for agencies of the federal government as well as those acquired in the course of business. Audiovisual records more than 30 years old must be offered to the National Archives and Records Service (NARS) before applying disposition instructions set forth in this schedule.

Audiovisual records include still and motion picture photography, graphic materials, and sound and video recordings. Related documentation includes:

(1) Production files or other files documenting the creation, justification, ownership, and rights to the records and (2) finding aids used to identify or access the records.

This schedule does not cover: (1) cartographic records; (2) remote sensing imagery recorded on film or magnetic tape; (3) microform copies of textual records; or (4) research and development data. Cartographic records and remote sensing imagery recorded on film are covered by GRS 17; digitised or computerized data are covered by GRS 20; microform copies of textual records may be covered by other general records schedules, depending on the informational content of the textual records; and research and development source data are covered by GRS 19.

 

RECORD ELEMENTS

For each type of audiovisual record, the specific record elements (originals, negatives, prints, dubbings, etc.) required by 41 CFR 101-11.411-4 for preservation, reproduction, and reference are listed. Since audiovisual records covered by this schedule include those produced under contract, by grant, and acquired from outside sources as well as those produced internally, maintenance and control of these record elements for records subject to the disposition “Submit SF 115” are essential, whether the record elements are stored in agency or contractor facilities.

 

DISPOSITION INSTRUCTIONS

The word “destroy” is used to authorize destruction of data or information. Erasable media such as magnetic tape should be reused whenever practical. Silver-bearing photographic film must be destroyed in accordance with 41 CFR 101-42.3, “Recovery of Precious Metals and Strategic and Critical Materials”.

The instruction “Submit SF 115” requires that the records be included in either an agency’s comprehensive records schedule or a specific request for disposition authority, unless they have been described on an agency records schedule approved by NARS after May 14, 1973. The introduction to the General Records Schedules provides additional information on scheduling records, which have no authorized disposition in this general records schedule. When describing these records in a comprehensive records schedule or a specific request for disposition authority, agencies may be guided by the categorical descriptions in this general records schedule, but these descriptions are not a substitute for specific agency prepared descriptions that are required to schedule the records.

This general records schedule authorizes the disposal of certain records without further concurrence from NARS. Agencies are encouraged to include specific series descriptions for such records in their comprehensive schedules while citing the governing disposition instruction from this general records schedule as the authority for destroying the records.

 

SOUND RECORDINGS

RECORD ELEMENTS

(a) Conventional mass-produced, multiple copy disc recordings: the master tape, matrix or stamper, and one disc pressing.

(b) Magnetic audio tape recordings (reel-to-reel, cassette or cartridge): the original or earliest generation of each recording, and a dubbing, if one exists.

ITEM NO.	DESCRIPTION OF RECORDS	AUTHORIZED DISPOSITION
1	Recordings of meetings made exclusively for note taking or transcription.	Destroy immediately after use.
2	Dictation belts or tapes	Destroy immediately after use.
3	Pre-mix sound elements created during the course of a motion picture, television or radio production	Destroy immediately after use
4	Library sound recordings(e.g. effects, music).	Destroy when no longer needed
5	Daily or spot news recordings available to local radio stations on a call-in basis	Destroy when six months old or when no longer needed
6	Duplicate dubbings in excess of those elements required for preservation, duplication and reference by 41 CFR 101-11.411-4	Destroy when no longer needed
7	Agency-sponsored radio programs intended for public broadcast	Submit SF115
8	Agency-sponsored radio news releases and information programs.	Submit SF115
9	Agency-sponsored radio public service (or “spot”) announcements.	Submit SF115
10	Internal management news or information programs.	Submit SF115
11	Recordings of public meetings or speeches, agency-sponsored conferences, guest speakers, testimony of agency officials before congress and other hearings.	Submit SF115.
12	Oral history collections	Submit SF115.
13	Recordings or programs produced under grant that are submitted to the agency.	Submit SF115. (see also GRS 3, item 18)
14	Recordings or programs acquired from outside sources that document or are used to carry out agency programs	Submit SF115
15	Media appearances by top agency officials	Submit SF115
16	Documentary recordings made for fact-finding or other studies	Submit SF115

 

RELATED DOCUMENTATION

ITEM NO	DESCRIPTION OF RECORDS	AUTHORIZED DISPOSITION
1	Production files or similar files that document origin, development, acquisition, use and ownership.(May include scripts, contracts, transcripts, releases, etc.)	Dispose of according to instructions covering the related audiovisual records
2	Finding aids for identification, retrieval or use. (May include indexes, catalogues, shelf lists, log books, caption sheets, shot lists, continuities, etc. and may be in text, card, microform or machine readable format.)	Dispose of according to instructions covering the related audiovisual records

General categories retained by NARS:

1. Significant activities of the US Government and its officials, including all presidential and vice-presidential activities whether official, partisan, or personal; similar for senators and representatives, supreme court, cabinet-level officials and/or department heads, and other high-ranking officers.
2. Events, topics and other phenomena with national implications, e.g., labour strikes, union activities, pro-and anti-war activities, political parties, and other significant aspects of American society.
3. International news events and topics, especially those involving US foreign relations; also wars, conferences, foreign heads of state (royalty, presidents, prime ministers, etc.) and conditions in foreign countries.
4. Voices of prominent, famous or infamous personalities in all fields of endeavour, e.g. arts, culture, entertainment, politics, technology, radio news, etc. sports and provided for in 6 and 7 below.
5. Scientific and technological change, advancement or achievement, e.g. in medicine, transportation, conveyance, including discoveries, announcements, experiments, and demonstrations.
6. Sports recordings are limited to coverage of events such as Olympic Games, and professional championship games or matches and professional all-star games or interviews with famous sports personalities.
7. Cultural activities as documented in recordings of events or through news and information programs, e.g. government-sponsored or produced programs with entertainers, especially domestic war effort and troop shows, as well as talk, interview, and public affairs shows relating to American life-styles, and the performing arts, but not regularly scheduled entertainment and music programming.
8. The items to be retained are most likely to be located in the following types of programs:
   • US Government sponsored or produced programs
   • Regularly scheduled news
   • News bulletins, special reports and news inserts
   • News commentaries
   • Public affairs discussions or panels
   • Interviews, talk, forums, and similar programs
   • Actualities of events
   • Speeches, hearings

General categories designated for transfer to the Library of Congress:

1. Regularly scheduled entertainment programs such as:
   • Musical variety shows
   • Children’s shows
   • Concerts and performances
   • Audience participation shows
   • Quiz and panel shows
   • Religious programs
   • ”Human interest” stories
   • Talent contests
   • Drama
   • Broadway gossip
   • Serial and day time dramas
   • Homemakers’ programs
    
2. Sports, including amateur and college sports, non-championship professional games or matches, and regularly scheduled sports programs and commentaries.
3. All local, regional, or network affiliate programming or coverage unless there are broader implications.
4. Audio out-take material such as auditions, rehearsals, promotions, voice tests, recorded segments and bands for inserts.
5. Commercials and advertisements.

The is a compilation of appraisal/disposal guidelines that have been developing over the past few years as based on the FPMR, GRS 21, and specific criteria from several appraisal projects. Cataloguers should become familiar with the general categories loosely divided into subject matter and physical format approach.

It must be stressed that these lists are only suggested guidelines for cataloguers and other staff members to pinpoint items already accessioned that may have slipped through and require reappraisal. This should lead to recommendations for disposal. Approval and review for disposal must be done by an archivist before any actual disposal is accomplished. Remember the goal is to re-evaluate this material before costly cataloguing and preservation work is performed.

Physical types of audiovisual records that may be destroyed:

1. Audiovisual records that are extensively damaged. Examples are motion pictures with massive emulsion scratches throughout, or audio discs smashed or broken in more than three pieces. In effect, the audiovisual record is incomplete and unrecoverable.
2. All nitrate or di-acetate motion pictures, or acetate audiotape recordings once an acceptable preservation copy has been made.
3. Incomplete sets of audiovisual records such as motion pictures where either the sound track or picture track is missing, or audio recording that is incomplete, missing parts or disc sides etc. This would include motion picture trims, or film/video/audio out-takes and discards that lack proper identification or are so poorly arranged as to be unusable.
4. Duplicates and other non-record materials. Includes duplication projection prints or audio disc/ tape copies. Includes music and effects tracks and other pre-mix sound elements where necessary preprint elements and copies for preservation are available. Includes magnetic sound tracks that have been transferred to optical, title and other effects mattes, and work prints of completed production.
5. Audiovisual records that are technically inferior or unusable. Examples would be motion or video footage, which is poorly exposed or focused, or sound recordings that are unintelligible, or inaudible.

General subject-matter categories for audiovisual records that may be disposable:

1. Audiovisual records whose subject matter is transitory in nature or purely of local interest. For example social gatherings, athletic events, or other activities not directly related to federal agency operations or responsibilities.

   Examples:
   • Sports including amateur and college sports, non-championship professional or matches, and regularly scheduled sports programs and commentaries.
   • All regularly scheduled entertainment or music programs broadcast on network or local radio or television.
   • All local, regional, or radio and television affiliate programming or coverage unless there are broader implications.
   • Coverage of disasters, weather stories, beauty and fashion show and human interest type stories.
    

2. Scientific, medical, or engineering research films, videotapes, or sound recordings where similar data or findings are available in another format such as a report or publication.
3. Audiovisual records documenting low-level administrative staff functions and ceremonial activities showing or recording award presentations and commendations.
4. Highly technical instructional audiovisual items or managerial or personal training films/videotapes/audio recordings dealing with information or techniques that are widely available from other sources such as text books or technical manuals.
5. Audio/video recordings of auditions, rehearsals, promotions, voice tests, recorded segments and bands for inserts.
6. Audiovisual records of public relations or informational press activities of persons who are subordinate to heads of agencies.
7. Audiovisuals records of interviews and panel discussions, lectures, or other items essentially lacking in pictorial information unless the personages appearing in the audiovisual record are likely to be subjects of pictorial, recorded, or historical research.
8. Radio or television spots, PSAs, trailers, commercials, or advertisements, which by definition are too short to offer much in the way of research value. Selective items produced by Federal sources may be kept however.
9. Foreign language versions of motion pictures/videotapes for which English language versions exist unless the foreign language was the original language of production.
10. All textual finding aids and production case files for disposable audiovisual records.

INTRINSIC VALUE IN ARCHIVAL MATERIALS
STAFF INFORMATION PAPER 21

NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORD SERVICE
GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION
WASHINGTON DC, 1982.

Today the archives have a double function. Firstly they have to supply the daily programme, and secondly to prepare their material so that science, arts and research can all make use of it. The radio archivist has to collect the records and make them fit for use when they are needed of programme making. In addition he needs to determine whether the record is a document in itself and of value in the future because of its contents, which could be characteristic of the feeling and thinking of the time in which it was produced. Examples of the different types of recording which have to be examined and analysed would include: news, news analysis, parliamentary debates, public shows, news reports, interviews, statements, sports news, lectures, readings, poetry readings, radio plays, light entertainment programmes, school radio, programmes for special audience groups, and in the field of music recordings, all types of music including serious music, light music, pop and jazz.

The main problem in carrying out this work of appraisal lies in the great number of recordings, which enter into German radio sound archives every year. The figures for the Süddeutscher Rundfunk archive in 1980 were:

5000 commercial records of light music containing 33,000 individual titles
800 commercial records of serious music
4430 music tapes (commercial and radio recordings)
4200 tapes of spoken word.

How can master or even come to terms with such a flood of material? Shortly after broadcasting every production (commercial and radio production) comes into the sound archives where it is documented and catalogued by specially trained staff. In our case selection does not mean a decision to keep or to erase, for as a rule we keep nearly everything. Selection in relation to our daily work means making decisions as to how intensive the cataloguing must be, because with the intensity of documentation the quality of information and research about a recording increases.

This paper deals with the cataloguing of music recordings. For a description of the documentation of spoken word recordings, the reader is referred to the paper published by Hansjörg Xylander of Radio Munich, “Documentation of spoken word soundtracks in broadcasting”, Phonographic Bulletin no. 30 July 1981.

Music recordings of light music are primarily a commodity of every day broadcasting. Here it would seem sufficient to register the basics data such as composer, title, artists and licence rights. In every day practice it is the music title or the musicians, which are the usual search terms. Süddeutscher Rundfunk recently began using electronic data processing and we are now able to combine different data elements with each other and achieve more precise selection than by a conventional cataloguing system. This means, however, that we have to enlarge the input to cope with the various possibilities of combining formal, special musical, technical or artistic problems. We can now for example ask a computer to look for a recording of “Yesterday”, not sung by the Beatles, in an instrumental version, with a small group and no longer than three minutes. Such detailed questions may seem curious, but are quite common in the daily work of a radio archive.

In the field of serious music we started years ago to intensify the conventional working methods of cataloguing. Now we have a very efficient cataloguing system at our Disposal, which demands not only the documentation of formal dates, but also the contents of the work and certain aspects of music history, and musicology. When cataloguing of instrumental music the musical genre and musicians are also registered. Choral music, for example, is divided into sacred and secular music and, within the different types, into forms like oratorio, mass, madrigal and solo items. Important historical dates to be noted are the years of composition, dedication, literary or other subjects for the music and so on. For example, questions may arise about a piece of music which has been dedicated to the Emperor Napoleon, or about works which have been written between 1780 and 1800 outside the German musical world, or about a musical profile of works which were published in 1900, or a catalogue of works by women composers. All those questions are difficult even for an archivist with special training, and he will normally not be able to answer such questions from memory, but will need special catalogues, which are dependent upon the detail of documentation, put on to the database.

To put the issues in general terms: in radio archives selecting, collecting, cataloguing and erasing are directed by the needs of the radio station and its main purpose, namely the preparation and realization of daily programmes of all kinds. The process of planning which takes place before broadcasting and is often carried out by the programme maker and not the archivist, who may not even be concerned at this stage. The programme maker has to ask the questions: which available record has to be bought, which new productions should be made by the radio itself, or which artists should be asked to perform? The archivist will be confronted later with the result of this planning process. He has to decide whether a recording has documentary worth or not, considering the internal radio point of view as well as the artistic and scientific one.

There are quite a number of criteria of documentation that we have to keep in mind when looking at a recording. The worth of a recording may lie in its singular and unrepeatable character (for instance a concert with a famous artist, the speech of a public personality in a special situation, or a live recording from the first landing on the moon). Or it may lie in the content, which characterizes a special problem or situation (for example, an interview about the problems of the unemployed). In this case the topic of the recording is of importance. At the same time the structural criteria have to be taken into consideration, for example, the formal and artistic quality of a recording itself (the new recording techniques like quadrophonic or artificial head stereo sound, artificial recording techniques - like a radio play production using the collage technique, or certain pieces of contemporary music, which sometimes can only be performed through the technical means of the radio for which they were composed). These two fields-content and form-can easily overlap. An example might be the BBC radio speeches of Thomas Mann during the war, addressed to German listeners, or a concert with famous artists, which is broadcast on United Nations Day. Generally we can say that the more of these criteria which are to be found on a recording, the more this recording is worth documenting.

Selection and documentation in a radio archive needs a strategy and working method, which differs greatly from those of other archives where documentation is an end in itself. In a radio station the archive has to provide the daily programmes with repertoire material and therefore has to be prepared to offer a wide spectrum of recordings. The selection decision of the archivist is less a decision of whether or not to keep or to erase, than one of whether or not to increase the depth of the documentation. Radio documentation and selection are composed of three functions: the formal registration, the recording of the contents and the presentation of different forms and branches of programmes. Included are those records, which reveal that they can be used for programme purposes as well as for arts, science, culture and education outside the radio. It is the duty of the archivist to keep both these sides in mind, help and advice for the programme makers and adequate documentation of the actualities of the day. The radio sound archivist must try to avoid mistakes in his selection, a demand that possibly can never be fulfilled totally, but this is one, which he has in common with every other archivist.

Ulf Scharlau is Head of Archives, Süddeutscher Rundfunk, Stuttgart.
This paper was first presented to the IASA conference in Budapest, 1981.

Having acquired the records, the next process contends with the matter of making them available to programme production staff. Some know exactly what they want, as they work in a particular field of entertainment and are thoroughly versed in the latest trends, groups and forthcoming recordings. Others, working in a more generalised form of programming will need help, suggestions and guidance.

In both circumstances, the onus is thrown upon the effectiveness of the cataloguing system. Take the case of the “specialist” producer who is working in the field of the big bands of the 30s and 40s. He wants a version of Charlie Barnet’s “Skyliner” recorded many times, but he wants one of Barnet’s own recordings.

The catalogue must tell him that besides having the original August 1944 “78” both in its original format and subsequent LP transfers, the library can also offer him a choice of the following: a “live” performance in Hollywood, also in 1944, and others recorded at various locations in March 1951, August 1958, a broadcast in December 1945 and so on. He knows that he wants a performance featuring Barney Kessel on guitar, and the catalogue must also inform him which of the recordings in stock feature Kessel. He can then make his choice. Mind you, there may well be yet another version, circulating on some small label in the US which has never been acquired – but, with luck, he will locate his record and ensure that the right version is broadcast. There are several ways in which this can be done: by identifying the recording date, location, band line-up and also the record release date. Some may claim that this information is more discographical than cataloguing, but from the point of view of the record library it is essential to have this information, which is after all fairly basic, when it is available, aligned to, and part and parcel of the main title entry.

It has been noticed that, particularly in the field of “popular” music, the title entry is the one to which most users go first. This may well confound some of the principles of AACR2 - but it is the main entry for the bulk of information in the Gramophone Record Library. Additional entries are made in sections devoted to performers, composers, lyric-writers, musical instruments, giving either the immediate information required to identify the record filing number, or at least a cross-reference to the main entry.

Another type of user is the producer who (nearly always at short notice) wants a snatch of music to supplement other items in a programme. This is usually in the field of news and current affairs, documentary features or drama productions, when the subject matter or content of the recorded item is of primary interest. A very useful aid here is the subject classification section devised by the library especially to meet this need. It has been developing over the last ten years or so, and the format is fluid. Attempts are being made to impose a precise and final form upon it, but every so often the headings and groupings have to be revised.

It cannot be a static scheme. At present the entire catalogue exists in the form of typed cards stored in filing cabinets, pending computerisation. When this computerisation being the library will be forced to commit the systems to a definite and rigid format.

The classification ranges widely and aims to cater for the myriad requests received. To take a few examples: recordings of songs about food and drink are grouped together as are recordings about sport. This latter section is subdivided into different sporting activities and then again into groups such as songs celebrating the sport, team songs, and recordings by individual players - it is amazing how many star footballers have made at least one record as a budding pop star - and, incidentally, in another category, the same applies to politicians. There are groups of songs about animals, industrial and work songs, and another section uneasily called - because no one could think of anything better – “Social Comment”. Here there are songs about many topics - race-relations, environmental problems, economics, old age, and inevitably the old favourites, drugs, sex and alcohol, either for or against.

Another section relates music to a particular period, and another attempts to deal with the various styles of popular music that have acquired labels - such as collections of recordings or significant performers associated with types like “Heavy Metal”. Sometimes it is hard to be too precise about some of these genres as so much overlapping takes place. It is probably easier to re-make such sections with the benefit of hindsight and some reclassification will be necessary. Film soundtrack recordings are listed under the year the film was released, and entries for the aforementioned Eurovision Song Contest year by year, noting the winning entry and the runners-up.

The composer section lists, in addition to a composer’s output indicated alphabetically and annotated, a useful sub-section devoted to collections on LP of that composer’s work. Under Lennon and McCartney one can find not only Cathy Berberian’s unique realisation of the Beatles’ songs, but a variety of other arrangements played by everything from the Boston Pops under Arthur Fiedler, by way of the Grenadier Guards Band to a Moog Synthesizer. The Beatles themselves also rate an entry in the Subject Classification catalogue as several songs have been written about them.

The library has on hand a number of reference books, especially those covering performers recording careers. The Gramophone Library is fortunate in being able to call upon the Popular Music Library for other reference material when required rather than keep permanent duplicates. The two libraries try to keep a balance and not duplicate information unnecessarily in the catalogues if it is readily available in printed form near at hand. However, in the case of recording data for instance, it is much better and also time-saving to have the information incorporated in the catalogue.

The form of cataloguing now pursued has been developed specifically to meet the needs of a broadcasting station, but its gestation has been a little haphazard. It has rough edges, is by no means complete, and is certainly selective. It is not proposed as a standard format for dealing with all such recorded material, but it has elements that could usefully serve as a basis for the kind of classification most sound recordings libraries, as well as many others, are finding more necessary. One has to be wary of “classification” becoming an end in itself, and certainly different libraries, having different needs, would be advised to consider very carefully their own needs for such cataloguing. However, it should not be too difficult to agree at least a basic level of desirable headings – and perhaps this might form a useful subject for a working party at some future session.

Derek Lewis is the Gramophone Librarian of the BBC.
This paper was first given at the IASA conference in Washington DC 1983. It formed part of the session given by the IAML/IASA Committee on Music and Sound Archives.

The term popular music is extremely vague, covers a wide field of musical endeavour and ranges over a long period of time; there has been “popular music” ever since man made music for his own pleasure. The difficulty is to draw a distinction between serious or, less accurately, classical music and the other forms in existence, especially as much of the material in the popular field is taken quite seriously by many people. It might be preferable to call this type of music, light music. This term would effectively cover music of a more transient nature, which would not be expected to have a lasting appeal except to the most diehard adherents of a particular style or form. This is not to denigrate such music or to detract from its worth, for it is certainly as valuable in its own way as any other sphere of musical creativity. The area covered by the term light music is enormous, ranging as it does from folk music to heavy metal rock, operetta to jazz, country and western to big band dance music and film and Broadway musicals to current chart pops. It is difficult to place all these varying styles and numerous forms into any sort of comprehensible collection, and one that is retrievable and makes any sort of sense to library staff, researchers or users of any kind.

The BBC Popular Music Library is one of the largest of its kind in the world and has a system just like the one described. The library has well over a quarter of a million pieces of sheet music in a collection which has been built up since before the 2nd World War. The stock held by the library covers many forms: arrangements and orchestrations (there is a distinct difference) and which can be found in manuscript and printed form; song copies, vocal scores of musicals, operettas, and musical films; song albums featuring the collections of popular singers; bands, musical styles, or musical periods; instrumental pieces existing as solos or collections and a small collection of reference books. As you can see the cataloguing possibilities are almost endless and will present a myriad of problems. Arrangements and orchestrations alone arrive in many forms dependent on the size and style of band and orchestra. The BBC Popular Music Library systems are in fact tailor made, do not correspond with formal library cataloguing schemes and have in the past caused deep shock to visiting library students who have come to inspect us as part of their studies.

In addition to the previously mentioned stock, there is an extensive file collection which again has been tailor made over the years, catalogued in its own way and covering many aspects of the popular music field in an analytical way. Some examples of the subjects found in this collection and the ways in which they are put to use in programme making may clarify the points at issue. The file collection, incidentally, has been built almost entirely from newspaper and magazine cuttings taken from the fifteen or more periodicals received by the Popular Music Library each week over a period many years.

a) Biographies
There is an extensive biographic collection covering many personalities in the popular music field, ranging from musical actors to conductors, from singers to jazz musicians. These collections cover every kind of personality to be found in this sphere of musical activity.

b) Obituaries
The obituaries cover the same area as that of the biographies and are invaluable for determining the age of personalities when creating a programme about them. One is often asked how the radio networks manage to broadcast a complete programme on somebody immediately after they have died, having very little time to prepare it. The answer is that the basis of the programme was prepared before they died. There is a researcher employed in preparing programmes on eminent people who are approaching old age and these programmes are filed waiting for the inevitable to happen. Naturally the people in question are not told about this!

c) Musical and film reviews
These are culled from the various periodicals, which are taken by the library; however it is quite difficult to get satisfactory reviews of shows. Many of these are written in a flippant, uninformative manner even in the most serious of papers and contain little or no information on the item in question. Probably the best publication of all is the American trade paper “Variety”. Unfortunately, it does not cover the shows in Great Britain and Europe to any great extent; and London does appear to be one of the two great centres of theatrical activity, the other being New York. These files are subdivided to cover American and British productions and can also be found by year of premiere.

d) Analytical
This file collection divides songs by their subject matter. For example songs will be listed covering drinking or eating, songs about World War I or II, songs about horses or other animals, songs about London, about New York etc., songs about girls’ or boys’ names, songs about motoring or sailing; the list is endless. These files are invaluable when a producer wishes to build a programme with a specialist subject as its theme. Educational broadcasting is a good customer when it comes to this type of subject matter.

e) Song Histories
In certain circumstances the histories of the better-known standard songs are kept on file. Details list by whom they were written and when, what they were written for, perhaps a film theme or radio show, who sang them and so on. This kind of information is used for notes for a presenter to have something to say about the items in a specific programme.

There are other more obscure files in addition to those mentioned but this is a sample of the most widely used files.

With only two exceptions the Popular Music Library has catalogued everything in stock by title. This may seem a radical way of arranging things but in a large comprehensive collection such as this with its specialist use, the system is designed to suit the work patterns. Two main indexes are being introduced which cover the bulk of the stock plus a vast collection of song copies which are arranged alphabetically; thus creating their own index. The first main index covers the complete collection of arrangements and orchestrations in manuscript and printed form for various orchestras. This covers approximately 115,000 items which are all available and in current use. The material is arranged numerically on the shelves in bags as it is catalogued, the manuscript arrangements in one section and the printed ones in another. Because they cover a wide range of orchestral and band styles the only possible way to catalogue these items is by title. Naturally, most titles will have more than one arrangement and, therefore, in the index each individual title is arranged numerically.

There have been various collections of arrangements donated to the Popular Music Library from various sources, for example, eminent orchestra and bandleaders now retired or BBC regional orchestras and bands now non-operative. These collections have been catalogued and integrated into the main collection with information that these items are from alternative sources although absorbed into the main collection.

The other index includes song albums, vocal scores, piano and instrumental solos and selections and a separate indexed song collection. All the items listed in this catalogue itself are comprehensively annotated enabling the staff to pinpoint the location of each item.

The cards in both our main indexes contain selected information, which may include composer and publisher details, the orchestra for which a piece of music has been arranged, the date of composition, the copyright date, the key and the range of a vocal item, and any subsequent adaptations of the pieces.

Apart from these file collections the other sections of the library, which carry their own catalogue systems, are the reference books and the composer file section. This latter collection is based on eminent composers of popular music and contains completely indexed files of these composers’ works. This is a difficult collection to continue in as much as the problem exists of deciding which composers merit inclusion in what is essentially an archive. The obvious people such as Rogers and Hammerstein, George Gershwin, Lennon and McCartney, are easy to administer, their music is readily available and well documented. The lesser-known composers, especially those who are currently writing can be more problematic when deciding to create a file on their works. To decide on their inclusion, to obtain a list of their complete works, and then to obtain those works is quite an arduous task. The safest rule of thumb when in doubt about the merit of a composer is to include him in your collection.

The question of choosing or selecting the material to go into the library creates problems given the amount of popular music that is continuously published. The following section deals with the particular stock of the BBC Popular Music Library and indicates the criteria involved in acquisition of this material.

Arrangements: The collection of these depends entirely on the requirements of the broadcasting production departments. Production departments decide how much of their budget is available for new arrangements and then commission these through an orchestrations department. In this process the library receives the finished product and catalogues it. Library staffs are, therefore, not involved in an acquisition policy as far as this material is concerned, only to advise on material already in existence and avoid duplication.

Publishers’ Printed Orchestrations: The Library receives lists from publishers who issue this material, the bulk of which is now published in the USA, and decisions are made as to which of the titles would be useful for BBC radio bearing in mind the output of radio and the style of the arrangers or composers involved. Occasionally specific pieces are requested by production departments and ordered for library stock.

Song Copies: The top twenty songs from the British Charts are normally ordered as a matter of course although they are not always available in print. In addition, orders are made for any new songs which are thought suitable or have become popular by one means or another. Much of this material is supplied free of charge, although payments can also be made.

Song Albums and Vocal Scores: With these items, selection is made on the basis of what is considered to be suitable for the likely users of the library. This is not primarily an archive, and does not attempt to acquire everything in print. It is also very easy to duplicate such material, as publishers are very good at re-issuing the same material dressed up in different packages. Vocal scores from every successful musical play and operetta that has been in London from the turn of the century are collected but nowadays publishers tend to issue only selections from new works as opposed to the whole score. This can be a problem when an entire score is called for.

Instrumental Items: There are far fewer of these in the popular music area than in serious music, and most of them are issued as piano items. Unless a piece has become popular we only acquire instrumental pieces on demand by users.

Reference Books: The Library administers its own small budget for these items, which is just adequate for our needs. Although this budget is small, the amount of books brought out on the subject per year, including biographies, is also quite small and many of the new publications will duplicate in one form or another material already in stock.

With very few exceptions the use of all the BBC Popular Music Library’s material is confined to BBC staff for programme production and broadcasting. The bulk of the material is still in copyright. The BBC has various agreements with various interested bodies such as the Music Publishers Association by which it agrees not to supply any material to persons or organisations outside of the corporation. Manuscript commissioned arrangements are hired to known individuals or to broadcasting organisations and official bodies provided the agreement of the arrangers involved has been obtained.

The main users of the bulk of the stock are BBC programme makers and the demand for material will vary according to the programme. The stock of arrangements is used by the various BBC orchestras on an ongoing basis by which the usual modern musical tastes are catered for. Sometimes a special programme is created in which a particular musical style or are may be required. It is necessary to be able to identify the required music in stock and retrieve it with the minimum effort: hence the usefulness of file collections and analytical indexes pertaining to specialised subjects. This also applies to research enquiries where information on songs of a particular era or year, artist or band or any other specialised case may have to be pinpointed. Information is often sought on chart success for a particular month or year and all this information must be readily to hand.

A particular type of staff is required in Popular Music Library of radio corporations. Primarily the staffs have to be qualified musically as one would expect the members of staff in any music library to be. However, an academic music training, which would be suitable for a normal music library, is in itself, not sufficient. Over and above musical knowledge and knowledge of library systems, specialists are needed in the subject of popular music. The library requires subject specialists who are able to identify the music, can advise on the idiom and have a more than superficial knowledge. The subject is vast and it is unlikely that anyone will be schooled in more than two or three aspects of it, but taking all staff together it is possible to provide a fairly comprehensive advisory service to potential users.

Popular music in all its forms is a relatively new exercise compared with other archival endeavours and up to this point in time has not been taken too seriously, certainly in academic circles. It has been left to individuals or other interested parties such as broadcasting organisations or publishers to create any workable collections, normally for their own use. But it can be argued that this is an art form which has as much credibility as any other; which appeals to and involves a greater amount of people than most others, and which has a great influence on the entertainment world and the leisure activities of most of the general public. To ignore this mass of material because it may not live up to individuals’ intellectual expectations is a sterile attitude and to a great extent burying one’s head in the sand.

It is up to people such as librarians and archivists to reverse this trend and to preserve what in effect is a wealth of musical experience for posterity. A quotation from Noel Coward, one of the most prolific of English songwriters whose contribution to the field of popular song was enormous will provide an apt conclusion:

“In my early 20s and 30s it was from America that I gained my greatest impetus. In New York, they have always taken light music seriously. There, it is, as it should be, saluted as a specialised form of creative art, and is secure in its own right… Here in England there are few to write the music and fewer still to recognise when it is written”.

Happily nowadays recognition of popular music is no problem. However, those of us who are interested and involved are still fighting a battle to make academic and educational establishments give the recognition to popular or light music that it so richly deserves.

Leslie Wilson is the Librarian of the BBC Popular Music Library in England.
The paper was given as part of a session on the Selection of popular music at the IASA conference in Washington, 1983.

It is desirable that all sound archives, which make up the national collection, should publish their selection policies:

1. to allow discussion of relative role to proceed from a clearly defined base so that we can co-ordinate with other sound archives either in a hierarchy of dependence or division of responsibility between equals;
2. to allow rationalisation of resources by deciding priorities and preventing duplication;
3. a good service cannot be provided within the oral history field by simply reacting to public demand as there must be a positive endeavour to build collections which will anticipate needs and give an orderly expression of priorities over a period of time;
4. to facilitate understanding of the operation of the sound archives selection policy.
   1. Users can see the principles used and thus better judge the areas covered by the collection. Donors can also make a pre-judgment of whether their material will be selected for archival preservation.
   2. Staff can work to clearly defined rules guaranteeing stability and consistency untroubled by staff changes.
5. Evaluation of performance is facilitated.

The purpose of the Imperial War Museum is to collect, preserve and display material and information bearing upon the two World Wars and other military operations since 1914 in which Great Britain or other members of the Commonwealth have been involved. Other museums, both national and provincial exist, but the Imperial War Museum, alone in the country, is solely concerned with all aspects of war, military and civil, allied and enemy in this, the age of the two greatest wars in history.

This statement is the most concise statement of purpose which the Museum possesses. The Department of sound Records has no separate brief other than its responsibility as a national sound archive.

However, further amplification of the particular responsibilities of the Department of Sound Records can be gleaned from study of the original intentions of the General Committee appointed by the War Cabinet to consider a scheme for a National War Museum in 1915 which reported to the Cabinet in 1917. Documents issued by the Committee bearing the names of Sir Martin Conday the first Director General and Sir Alfred Monk the Chairmen state the following:

“The Imperial War Museum should have a more intimate personal interest for the individual than any museum that has ever been contemplated, for it is proposed to show not only the work of the fighting forces, but also the manner in which the whole Empire responded to the call in munitions work, women’s substitution, and work in the land, in fact it is proposed to record the whole life of the Empire as changed and revolutionised by the war.

The individual will find the work of himself and his family exhibited for all time.

Much that would have been of great value to the National Collection is already, destroyed, more is in imminent peril of destruction. A general co-operation is needed to preserve everything that can be saved.”

Consideration of the points raised in these statements lead to the conclusions that:

The Sound Records Department must collect, preserve and display all recordings and transcripts (when available) bearing upon the two world wars and other military operations since 1914 in which Great Britain or other members of the Commonwealth have been involved.

The department has a particular responsibility to preserve the individual viewpoint of the events, which form the brief of the Museum. The recording medium is particularly effective in preserving this viewpoint both accurately and evocatively.

The department has a particular responsibility to record those elements of the Museum’s brief which by their nature are less fully documented but which are of equal importance in understanding how the whole life of the country was changed and revolutionised by war.

The department has a responsibility to preserve everything that can be saved.

Although the brief quite clearly indicates that there should be a universal selection policy there are restrictive problems.

Lack of space. Although technology promises to minimise this problem with digital recordings there is no commitment for re-equipment with this expensive equipment. The existing collection would have to be re-recorded in any event.

Lack of oral history interviewers. The recording programme of acquisitions is restricted by the low number of staff and freelance oral history interviewers. This forces a careful choice as to who can be interviewed and on what subjects.

Lack of staff and equipment for preservation work. The archival copying and preservation is extremely time consuming and staff are also required for monitoring air-conditioning and checking the stability of recordings in storage.

Lack of staff for cataloguing. Sound recordings are not readily accessible without clear effective cataloguing. This is extremely costly in staff time due to the requirement to prepare synopses of tape content.

Lack of resources. Although the previous three points are consequent upon this, the general point can be made that the archival preservation of recordings involves a commitment to prepare copies of the material and there is a limited budget for tape purchase.

To ensure a balanced collection. If we simply respond to the material offered to us the collection may easily become unbalanced and not reflective of the institution’s brief.

The following table represents in summary form the current state of the collection. The grades are designed to facilitate judgements on the scope of the collection in a particular subject field and are as follows:

A- Comprehensive	= Research level on most topics within the subject area defined
B - Research	= Research level within the subject area defined
C - Study	= Study level within the subject area defined
D – Basic	= Basic material within the subject area defined
E – Minimal	= Minimal material within the subject area defined
F – None	= No relevant materia

OHP – Oral History Project

Date and Subject	Relevant Collection	Grade	Notes
1898-1901 Boer War	Pakenham	B	Outside Museum’s brief
1901-1914 General	Miscellaneous	D	Outside Museum’s brief
1914-1918 Home Front	• OHP War Work • OHP Anti-War Movement • BBC Great War • BBC Women at War Lyn Macdonald Collection • Chris Howell Collection • Wolverton at War • Miscellaneous	B	Weak on male involvement on Home Front throughout
Western Front	• OHP Western Front • BBC Great War • Lyn Macdonald Collection • Chris Howell Collection • Wolverton at War • Miscellaneous	B	Weak on 1914/15 e.g. Christmas Truce at Mons, Loos, Neuve Chappelle
Gallipoli	• BBC Great War • Miscellaneous	E
Salonika	• BBC Great War • Miscellaneous	E
Mesopotamia	• BBC Great War • Miscellaneous	E
Palestine	• BBC Great War • Miscellaneous	E
Italy	• BBC Great War • Miscellaneous	E
Ireland	• BBC Great War • Miscellaneous	E
East Africa	• Miscellaneous	E/F
Naval Campaigns	• OHP Lower Deck • BBC Great War • Miscellaneous	C	Poor on campaigns outside North Sea
1914-18 British Army	• OHP Western Front • Lyn Macdonald Collection • Chris Howell Collection • Wolverton at War • Miscellaneous	B
Air Force (RFC, RNAS, RAF)	• OHP Military & Naval • BBC Great War • Miscellaneous	B
Royal Navy	• OHP Lower Deck • BBC Great War • Miscellaneous	B
	1919 - 1939
Attacks on USSR, 1919-1921	• Miscellaneous	E
Invergordon Mutiny, 1931	• Alan Breira Collection • Tony Carew Collection • Miscellaneous	A
Spanish Civil War, 1936-39	• OHP British Involvement in Spanish Civil War • Miscellaneous	C	Very poor on fascist side
Home Front	• OHP Britain and the Refugee Crisis • OHP Anti War 2 • Miscellaneous	D	Often this subject is outside Museum’s Brief. Absence of rise of Fascism
Africa	• OHP British Army in Africa • BBC Tales from the Dark Continent • Miscellaneous	A
Ireland	• Miscellaneous	E
India	• OHP British Army in India • BBC Plain Tales from the Raj • Miscellaneous	A
Middle East	• OHP Middle East; British Military Personnel • Miscellaneous	B
Far East	• OHP British Servicemen in the Far East • Miscellaneous	B
British Army	• OHP Mechanisation of the British Army • OHP British Army in Africa • OHP British Army in India • OHP Middle East; British Military Personnel • OHP British Servicemen in the Far East • Miscellaneous	A	Poor on home station service
Royal Air Force	• OHP The RAF and the Development of Air Power • OHP Duxford • Miscellaneous	B
Royal Navy	• Alan Ereira Collection • Tony Carew Collection • Miscellaneous	D
1939-1945	• OHP Evacuation • OHP Anti War 2 • OHP British and the Refugee Crisis • OHP Duxford • BBC Second World War • BBC Personalities • Thames TV World at War • Capital Radio Blitz • Political Warfare Executive Collection • Miscellaneous	C
Overseas	• OHP Gort’s Army • OHP Far East POWs • OHP European POWs • OHP Enemy Internment of British Civilians • OHP British Service Cameramen • BBC Second World War • Thames TV World at War • Philippine Collection • Salerno Collection • Miscellaneous	D
1945-1983 Korea	• Miscellaneous	E/F
Colonial Warfare	• BBC Plain Tales from the Raj. • BBC Tales from the Dark • Continent Miscellaneous	E/F
Ireland	• Miscellaneous	E/F
British Army	• Miscellaneous	E/F
Royal Air Force	• Miscellaneous	E/F
Royal Navy	• Miscellaneous	E/F
	1900 - 1983
Political	• BBC Personalities • US National Archives • IWM Nazi Leaders • Deutsches Rundfunk • Nuremberg War Trials • Political War Executive • OHP Anti War Movement • OHP Anti War 2 • OHP Spanish Civil War • RUSI	C	Weak on France/USSR/Japan/pre 1938 USA/pre 1930 UK/ Fascism in UK in 1930s/The post 1945 situation
Cultural	• OHP Artists in an Age of Conflict • OHP British Service Cameramen • War Poets Collection • ENSA Collection • Miscellaneous (including music)	C
Technical	• OHP Mechanisation of the British Army • RUSI Collection • Miscellaneous	E	Weak on weapons development and construction
Sound Effects	• Army and RAF Film Sound Effects	C	Very weak on all but Second World War

The implications of the negative factors which prevent the adoption of a universal selection policy means that the department should examine how to construct a list of subject priorities and then apply them to the construction of such a list, based on the current state of the collection as detailed in the previous section.

Identification of Subject Priorities

1. Relevance of subject to Museum’s brief.
2. Demand for material relating to subject.
3. Success of collection as currently stated to meet that demand both now and in the future.
4. Number of people involved in the events which taken together form the subject matter. This is of relevance if the number is large and thus represents a subject, which we should make efforts to collect, as it is a common central experience. It can also be of relevance if the number is small and the subject represents a rare but significant experience.
5. Number of people involved in the events which together form the subject matter who are still available to relate their experience and the length of time for which they will continue to be available. This is of relevance as it can raise the priority of a topic if the source of recollections is about to disappear for any reason.

Suggested Priorities

1. 1914-1918 The First World War
   Gallipoli; Mesopotamia; Italy; Palestine; East Africa; Ireland; Salonika
   Western Front Operations 1914-15
   Naval Campaigns: Coronel & Falklands; Hunt for Raiders, convoy & Anti-Submarine; Dover Patrol; Zeebrugge Raid
   Male work on home front: farming; mines; heavy armaments
    
2. 1919-1939 Inter War
   Attacks on USSR 1919-21
   Spanish Civil War and particularly Fascist side
   Ireland
   Royal Navy (excepting Invergordon)
   Rise of fascism in Britain
    
3. 1939-1945 Second World War
   Home Front – Industry; Farming; Women’s role; Home Guard; Political Warfare; Politicians; Press & Media; Espionage; Battle of Britain; Blitz
   Overseas - all major campaigns especially those involving limited numbers. Special attention must be taken to avoid minimizing the attention given to the RN and RAF.
    
4. 1945-1983 Post War
   Korea
   Colonial Warfare: African campaigns; Aden; Cyprus; Falklands; Vietnam (Australian); India Independence; Ireland
    
5. 1900-1983
   Political: Recordings related to France; pre 1938 USA/; Japan; Rise of fascism in UK in 1930s and 80s; post 1945 situation.
   Technical: Weapon development and construction
   Sound Effects: pre 1939 and post 1945.

The existence of subject priorities thus identified does not alter the fact that all new acquisitions should be examined with the guide of selection criteria, which include not only an expansion of subject considerations but also others of equal relevance to a sound archive. The starting point of such selection criteria would be the following general statement: a recording warrants preservation if there is any reason that the loss of the recording would be regretted in the future by researchers into those fields of study covered be the Imperial War Museum. The points below should be considered a checklist of criteria in selection:

Relationship of subject matter to collection

• Relevance of topic to Imperial War Museum’s brief. Is it correctly defined within our terms of reference or would it be better deposited at a more relevant institution. Is there an existing demand for the topic from the public and what is the nature of that demand.
• Is the topic of lasting importance or is interest of a temporary nature. Will there be a future demand for the topic. Is the topic already covered by the collection to such a degree that all future demands made in that area can be satisfied. Is the topic in a designated priority area as in (5).

Relevance of sound medium

• Would the subject matter be better or more securely preserved in another medium.

Rarity of Recording

• How rare is the recording or the information contained within it. Could it be easily duplicated or reacquired at a later date or would there be a risk of permanent loss.

Secondary characteristics of the recording

• Are the personalities heard on the recording of interest in their own right and are there available recordings of their voices of a comparative origin and background. Are social attitudes revealed in the recording, which may be of more interest than the original subject matter. What is the reputation of the author/producer of the recordings and are the recordings central as a primary source to some publication of permanent interest.

Role as a national archive

• Is the material although outside the brief within the Imperial War Museum worthy of archival preservation until a permanent home can be found.

Minimum technical standards

• Does the recording conform to the minimum technical standards laid down by the Imperial War Museum sound technician. (See Appendix A)

Limitations on use

• Does copyright provision place unacceptable restrictions on the use of the material.

Selection procedures

• Members of staff shall make every effort to secure collections of relevance to identified subject priorities.
• When a collection is offered to the Museum a report should be prepared by the member of staff concerned reflecting an analysis of the collection using our selection criteria.
• This report should be discussed with senior archive staff and a decision taken on whether to acquire the collection; recommend it for preservation elsewhere; or reject the collection outright. The decision should be unanimous for the third option to be taken or selection staff should almost inevitably be in breach of the general selection statement.

Archive Material Selection-Technical Considerations

Although there is no difficulty in stating preferred minimum technical specifications for recording quality regarding the usual parameters of frequency response, signal to noise ratio, wow and flutter and distortion, there is considerable difficulty in measuring them on a suspect piece of material. This is because to make such measurements it is necessary to have test tones on the tape, recorded by the machine on which the recording proper has been made. By definition a doubtful recording will not have this. Therefore a decision concerning technical suitability will usually be made on a subjective basis.

The basic requirement of any recording is that it be intelligible to a person with average hearing ability. There are a number of techniques available to enhance the performance of a “borderline” case to bring it closer to an acceptable performance. By using conventional “mid” tone controls or a graphic or parametric equaliser, it is possible to accentuate the 1 to 3 KHz frequency range to which the ear is most sensitive. Tape hiss can have its annoyance value reduced by careful setting of a gentle treble “roll-off” using a graphic equaliser. This, or a parametric or notch filter can also be used to reduce hum and associated harmonic frequencies provided they are not too wideband (it can be difficult to filter out large amplitude harmonics that extend across the whole audio band). Unwanted low-frequency rumble can be reduced by using a high-pass filter with either a 6dB or 12dB per octave slope with a switchable range of say 50 to 160Hz - most modern mixing desks incorporate this feature.

It should also be borne in mind that improvements in signal processing techniques are almost inevitable in years to come. For this reason it is probably advisable to either copy poor material “flat”, noting details of necessary filtering to be carried out on any subsequent copies, or for the minimum of filtering to be used for acceptable results on a master tape¹.

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1. Note (added in 2010): modern practice is not to “improve” the original recording when copying for archival purposes but only when making access copies.