Information services

Information about the holdings must be available on the premises for individual users. The information may take various forms. An information sheet, brochure or pamphlet should be provided to explain the services available. General information should be given on research hours, regulations on research room use, an outline of holdings, specific copyright restrictions, a statement of duplication policy, instructions for ordering copies and on the use of playback equipment and finding aids. The principle finding aids such as shelf lists, inventories and card indexes which normally provide administrative control of holdings, should be made available to all researchers. This is especially true for basic documentation such as shelf lists that are often prepared. These primitive but essential finding aids often become a primary reference tool for researchers since full content cataloguing of sound recordings' in archives is rarely completely achieved. As a general rule all finding aids should be open to all researchers irrespective of restrictions on access that may apply to the recordings they refer to.

A substantial part of a basic reference service lies in answering inquiries received by telephone or mail. This is a necessary service that must be provided but may be limited by lack of staff or other resources. Normally the sound archive staff should be able to provide information about recordings (i.e. does the archive have a recording on a certain subject or event or of a particular person, song or title?) but may draw the line and limit the service when asked to provide information from the recordings (i.e. listening to selections or parts of recordings so as to identify speakers or composers or to furnish detailed discographical information).

In addition to the administrative finding aids generated by a sound archive, there may be other descriptive materials that will be of great use to researchers in recorded sound such as scripts, production files, personal papers, musical scores, recording company ledgers, registers and corporate files. This type of information is often essential for a researcher and as archivally important as the recordings themselves. A sound archive should therefore strive at the time of acquisition not only to obtain the actual sound recordings but also any textual material that relates to or forms an integral part in the creation of the recordings.