[NJARC] Fwd: [NEARC_Radio] Digital archiving of records

[Alex Magoun]

Thanks, Joe,

Once upon a time, ie 1994-95, I was the first lay archivist for what was
then Holy Family College in northeast Philly. Among the surprise holdings
of this small institution were some Webster wire recording spools, dated
from the late 1950s; that is, shortly after the college's start in 1954 and
before Vatican II and the sixties knocked American Catholicism for a loop.
Thanks to contacts through my phonograph record research, a magnetic
recording historian (there were two) knew about this small enterprise in
Germantown, Philly, George Blood. He impressed me with his no-nonsense and
knowledgeable approach; there was no small talk and getting to know you. He
had already started digital transfers of the Philadelphia Orchestra
archives, but he had a wire recorder and our very small job gave him the
incentive to repair it. As I recall he redid the CD transfers because he
wasn't satisfied with the sound quality, and they turned out nicely enough
given that the Holy Family machine was a hand-me-down from some early
friend of the college and that it wasn't an audio engineer manning the
device during recordings. The highlight was the sisters' choir, singing in
what I think was the Nazareth Academy chapel next door. It was a fine aural
slice of college life and presumably the CDs are in the HF University
archives, awaiting a stream on a Spotify channel.

Alex
~~~
Alexander B. Magoun, Ph.D., Outreach Historian
IEEE History Center
Samuel C. Williams Library 3rd Floor
Stevens Institute of Technology
1 Castle Point Terrace
Hoboken NJ 07030-5991
USA

+1 732-981-3414
a.b.magoun at ieee.org
www.ethw.org
@IEEEHistory
www.ieee.org/history_center

IEEE - Advancing Technology for Humanity
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