Preserving the Collections
Preservation is the process of reformatting unstable or obsolete media to modern and more robust formats. Conservation consists mainly of direct action carried out on cultural heritage materials with the aim of stabilizing and inhibiting further deterioration of the materials.

Since its founding nearly half a century ago, the Archive has been dedicated to both the preservation and conservation of its collections. Up until the late 1990s, preservation of Archive sound recordings consisted mainly of transferring the materials to new reel-to-reel audiotape. And up until about the same time, conservation of Archive sound recordings consisted of re-housing deteriorating reels onto inert hubs and into acid-free boxes.

Since the late 1990s the Archive has revamped its preservation and conservation procedures and policies. For example, in the realm of conservation, the Archive now stores an increasing number of its master materials in the University of California Libraries Southern Regional Library Facility (SRLF), an earthquake resistant, high-density shelving facility with state-of- the-art security systems and fire protection. Archive collections are stored on SRLF's Special Collections level that maintains an average temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit and 50% relative humidity, and filters the air for particulates and other pollutants. Access to SRLF, when coupled with the Archive's practice of housing materials in the finest acid free boxes, has significantly improved the Archive conservation and storage efforts.

Graduate student Ann Lucas digitizes a field recording in the Archive.	Ethnomusicology Archive collections at SRLF.

The Archive has also done much to improve its preservation policies and procedures. In 1998 the Archive was the first institution in the United States to be awarded an audio digitization grant by the National Endowment of for the Humanities. This grant enabled the Archive to purchase what was at the time a state-of-the-art digitization equipment in order to reformat nearly a thousand of its most deteriorating recordings.

As it often is with new technologies, what was cutting edge technology yesterday may be obsolete a few years later. Such was the case with the (16bit/44.1kHz) digitization lab provided by NEH. To remain ahead of the audio digitization curb, the Archive in 2002-2003 replaced the NEH digitization station with two 24bit/48kHz digitization stations and one state-of-the-art 24bit/96kHz digitization station. The 24bit/96kHz digitization station was purchased with funds provided to the Archive by a Grammy Foundation preservation grant. The Archive has also recently been able to meet the preservation needs of its photo collection. With funds provided by a grant by UCLA's Office of Instructional Development (OID), the Archive is now able to perform preservation scanning and video digitization.