Preservation of the Ditson Fund Recordings Archive


In 2006 the Columbia University Libraries received a generous award from The GRAMMY Foundation® Grants Program for preservation of the Ditson Fund Recordings Archive. The original master recordings include reel-to-reel audiotapes and both 12" and 16" acetate audio discs, all in poor physical condition and badly in need of preservation.

During the project Columbia produced preservation master high-quality reproductions of the originals in 96 kHz/24-bit WAV format, along with service files in 44kHz/16-bit WAV format, and entered all of the recordings into CLIO, Columbia Libraries' online catalog. The original recordings were re-housed into new archival-quality containers, and transferred to permanent storage at the Research Collections and Preservation Consortium in Princeton, New Jersey, where they are kept at 50° Fahrenheit and 35% relative humidity to promote their longevity.