Noteworthy article on preserving audio heritage

...wonder who determines what is culturally significant and what isn't in a case like this.

Curators, librarians, archivists, musicologists. And none of them ever get it right all the time for all the people. But it's what they do. And despite how it might seem to many, it's not random or particularly individualistic. They follow the rules and guidelines and principles of their disciplines.

Let the open market determine what is worth preserving.

The market does not preserve. This is why we have museums. Also, heritage and history.

At the bottom of it all is the question of public funding for museums and libraries. I think that if one accepts the concept, the work in question becomes a matter of degrees. That is, is it too much, or too little. In my own opinion, it is critical work. Music from our past that is still available did not spring forth from a vacuum. In order for historians, musicologists, and the rest of us to understand the history of the music, and better understand the times in which the music was made, such projects are terribly important. That other 84 - 90% can tell us quite a bit-- even if there is no clamor for it on i-Tunes just at the moment.

Now, if one is serious about examining government practices in regards to this project, a better question might be: why is the Library of Congress taking this on, when the Smithsonian has a long-standing program of collecting and re-releasing back catalogs? I would think that some coordination is in order here.

Consider Folkways for instance.