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Four reasons to digitise your
audio cassette collection
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Preservation
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Ongoing access
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Easier handling and navigation
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Increased utility of material
Reason 1: Preservation
- Consultation of digital copy eliminates wear on original recorded medium
- Digital copies have negligible generational loss
- Capacity to migrate to future digital preservation and access
media
Reason 2: Access
"In some cases, such as audio collections, digital copying is the only means
of preserving ongoing access."
Obsolescence of audio-cassette recording technology
Not undergoing further development
Professional cassette recorders already being withdrawn from
market
Increasing difficulty and expense of repairs
Deterioration of audio cassette carriers if:
- stored in hot and/or humid and/or dusty and/or mouldy
conditions
- played repeatedly (tape may have stretched)
- especially if cheap/poor quality originals
Reason 3: Easier handling and navigation
- Random access
- non-linear access to segments of file if appropriate time-coded indexes or markers inserted
in the digital file
- Excerpt files can be easily generated from markers
- Transcription may be facilitated
- cleaner sound > less tiring to transcribe
- capacity to slow down at pitch
- transcription software allows simultaneous timecoding and annotation
Reason 4: Increased utility of recording
- Electronic databases
- Electronic archives
- Presentations
- CD-ROM
- Website
- Commercial audio
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