Plan for the Preservation of Norwegian Sound Recordings

After 100 years of creating sound recordings in Norway, we have now reached the point where the need for a plan for the preservation of sound recordings is felt with increasing strength. Who is responsible for the preservation of sound recordings, who is to pay for the storage and what are the demands on access before the united resources are to be spent on the protection of sound recordings? These questions have been raised in many cases recently. Are we to take care of everything, and do we have to take care of everything to avoid becoming the laughing stock of the future? Who is best served by our storing everything and who is best served by someone's selection of what is to be stored? What is the purpose or what are the purposes of archiving the past?

The list of questions can be made considerably longer without resulting in any clearer answers. Most of these questions are also of a general nature and do not apply only to sound recordings. The basis of our work to develop a protection plan for Norwegian sound recordings has been the wish to contribute to a general strategy which all actors in the field would be able to relate to. Since there is so much variation in the resources available (see Part II), some of the recommended actions will not be equally relevant to all actors. Given the scarcity of resources experienced by public institutions, the lack of resources will automatically answer some of the questions posed initially.

One thing is certain: We cannot preserve all the sound recordings that are produced. As recording equipment has become household items, there are produced huge numbers of sound recordings that never reach the marketplace. It is likely that this material will contain many items that could be of historical interest in a few years. But even if this material often is unique, it is unlikely to be preserved in any other way than the case was with personal correspondence in the nineteenth century. Individuals saved it, some in a sound way, some not.

What always must be included in the consideration of sound recordings is the certainty that a physical object such as a sound recording can never be more than partially representative of the contents preserved by the recording. Supplementary material (record sleeves, catalogues and written reviews) may increase the information about the contents, but this will not be sufficient to answer all the questions that can be posed with hindsight when faced with a historic content handed down from the past.

We have chosen to present a report that gives the background for developing a strategy for the protection and preservation of Norwegian sound recordings. There are three main parts, with surveys of the history and the present status of Norwegian sound recordings, and a plan for the preservation of Norwegian sound recordings. In this plan we account for several preconditions for a collected protection effort and we develop criteria for prioritisation among the various tasks represented by the preservation of Norwegian sound recordings.

At the first Conference of Norwegian Sound Archives in Mo i Rana, in March 1993, a working group was established and given the mandate to investigate the possibilities of making a plan for the preservation of Norwegian sound recordings. The working group first met in Oslo on October 1, 1993. Ivar Roger Hansen was elected as chairman and Per Dahl as secretary.

After the second meeting of the group in Oslo February 17, 1994 and the second Conference of Norwegian Sound Archives in Oslo that spring, in the autumn of 1994 an application was made to the Norwegian Council for Cultural Affairs for financial support for the task of developing a plan for the preservation of Norwegian sound recordings. On June 15, 1995 Norsk Kulturråd granted 250 000 kroner for the preparation of such a plan.

Thanks are expressed to the following for their important contributions to this work: Vidar Vanberg (Ch 5.1 - 5.3), Hans Fredrik Dahl and Trond Valberg. Important background material was supplied by Bjørn Winther-Larsen and several experts at the National Library, Rana, Norway.

A survey of "Sound In Norway" was carried out by Ivar Roger Hansen and Trond Valberg. Address lists and statistical results from this survey are included in Appendix 2.

This report of a Plan for the Preservation for Norwegian Sound Recordings contains three main parts, an introduction and two appendices.

The introductory chapter Sound account for different approaches to describing sound. As this plan deals with Norwegian recordings, an attempt is made to describe the scope of Norwegian sound.

Part I History begins with a historic examination of Norwegian sound recordings with emphasis on the early years. We leave the description of the history of recording after 1950 to future history books (e.g. the new Norwegian music history under preparation at some universities). Then come two chapters dealing with the technological development (Chapter 6 Sound carriers and Chapter 7 Reproduction equipment). These chapters are only summarised here. The last chapter in this part (Document information) examines the non-sound information which is relevant for this material to function as a documentation of Norwegian culture and history.

Part II Status gives an overview of present sound collections and the various levels of responsibility in the management of Norwegian sound recordings (Chapter 9). Legislation of relevance to the work with sound recordings is commented upon in a separate chapter (Chapter 10).

Part II Preserving Norwegian sound recordings is the main part of this report. The goals of a preservation plan are set out in the Introduction (Chapter 11) and we also comment upon some of the problems encountered during preservation. In Chapter 12 the various preconditions for effective preservation are accounted for. The need for different forms of cooperation is emphasised. In Chapter 13 a set of criteria for the preservation of sound recordings and collections are developed.

Then follows an examination of the ordinary decision process for the preservation of sound recordings. Collecting (Chapter 14) with special mention of the Act on Legal Deposit, Norvegica and endangered material. Actions for the preservation of sound recordings are presented in Chapter 15, which also includes a description of the storage and life expectancy of the sound carriers. The preservation process cannot be said to be complete unless the preserved material has been made accessible and distributed to future generations. Chapter 16 therefore discusses possibilities and methods for the work with increasing access to archived recordings. Several further aspects of distribution are commented upon in Chapter 17.

This report attempts to give the background for a choice of strategy, and the working group's proposal for action is presented in Chapter 18. The working group deemed it right to propose a limited set of actions as a start. This is based on the wish to prioritise and lay the groundwork for a commitment to cooperation among Norwegian sound collections.

The appendices contain a literature list and addresses and statistics from the survey "Sound in Norway", which was carried out to give this report the facts to base its work on.

Based on the terminology used in legislation (e.g. The Act on Legal Deposit) the group chose the term "sound fixation", "lydfesting" above "sound recording", "lydopptak", even though the latter may be more used in everyday language.

Archivally speaking it is normal to use the term document of one or more copies of a medium that stores information for later transmittal or access (e.g. through listening or reading).

A sound recording is a physical object (a document) which has been so treated (mechanically, electrically or digitally) that from this object a progression of sound later can be reproduced.

This physical object is designated as the sound carrier, under certain circumstances it may also be referred to as a storage medium. We can distinguish between three main groups of sound carriers: mechanical, magnetical and optical sound carriers.

Very often it is the contents of the sound progression which is of interest to posterity, and this allows us to develop different preservation strategies for the sound carrier and the contents.

To ease the identification of a sound recording (sound carrier and contents) there often is a need for further documentation in the form of text, numbers and images. Information of this nature, regardless of medium, is designated as supplementary material.

A sound recording has been published when the document / sound recording exists in several copies, and these have been made accessible to the public through commercial sales or in other ways, with the consent of the rights holders.

Norvegica is a collective term for sound carriers of Norwegian origin or connection.

This plan is centered on genuine sound recordings, and does not enter into a discussion of multi media phenomena that include sound (cinema, video, television, CD-ROM etc.). We also do not say much about the problems connected with the preservation of sound in the form of independent data files (in digital radio production, the Internet etc.).

Sound can be described as a physical phenomenon or a subjective sensory perception. Sound waves occur in the air when a sound source makes quick pressure variations that travel at a rate of 330 m/s. The fact that the speed of sound varies considerably among different materials, is of great importance to acoustics, e.g. in a concert hall. The sound waves need matter to travel through and a vacuum (outer space) cannot convey sound waves. The compound of different frequencies or tone levels has a certain characteristic. If this compound sound contains all audible frequencies, it is also called white noise.

The experience of sound is related to our comprehension of sound and must on the whole be characterised as subjective in relation to the physical phenomenon of sound. In general the sound waves must be inside a certain frequency range (ca 20 - 20.000 Hz) and have a certain strength (measured in dB) in order that we can register them as sound. However, experiments have proved humans to be able to experience frequencies outside the so called audible range. This is of no small importance when considering the technical demands on the sound carrier and reproduction equipment. The experience of sound, e.g. music, is a form of understanding. Although experiencing sound to a large extent is a subjective understanding, it may be of interest to study inter-subjective sound experiences. No doubt this is much of the reason for the continued popularity of a composer such as Beethoven. Nor can it be by accident that Michael Jackson's album "Thriller" is the world's all time best selling album. In this context it is also of interest to ask whether it can be meaningful to talk about the Norwegian sound.

The developments of a written language and a system of musical notation were attempts to describe parts of the reality of sound. But it was only at the end of the 19th century that a system was developed which could describe sound in a way that did not require literacy or familiarity with a set of codes, as in the systems of writing and musical notation. The invention of the phonograph (phono = sound, and graph = writing) made it possible to store sounds for later playback. This laid the basis for the the 20th century as the "Century of sound"; the century in which it would become possible to study, differentiate and above all preserve the experience of music in a very different way from before.

Because of the distinctive quality and communicative properties of sound, a meaningful characterisation of sound must always be related to factors on both the sending and receiving end. Descriptions of the premises under which sound has occurred, belong to the sending end. Descriptions related to the perception of sound belong to the receiving end. These two areas can be divided into sub areas which to a varying extent have been documented in the form of sound recordings.

The sending area can be further differentiated. We can distinguish between sound created by nature and technically or industrially created sound. The first group encompasses both animal and bird sounds and the sounds of various natural phenomena, ranging from waterfalls to the sound of squeaking cold in starry winter nights.

The sounds of nature have been documented through work done by nature lovers and scientists throughout the past century. Alas, there is no national archive of these recordings today. Industrial sounds are hardly documented at all, excepting some documentary material in the NRK archives. There should be a discussion on the national level of whether it should be a task in the future to preserve such sounds also.

Technically and industrially created sound has become more and more of a factor in our daily aural environment. In the society of high technology which we now see emerging, the use of sound signals is becoming ever more apparent. Technically and industrially created sound of the previous century was mainly connected with industrial production. For large parts of this century the development in the transport sector has contributed to shift the emphasis of the technical/industrial sound environment towards sounds that are associated with human mobility of various kinds.

Another large group of sounds is what one may call meaningful sound. This implies that the sound is the result of a person's desire to use sound to convey a meaning. The two traditional forms of conveyance is directly through the spoken word or more indirectly and instrumentally through music.

Speaking of spoken word, the monologue or the speech was the primary topic for the first sound recording contraptions. The tradition of recording speeches continued with the 78 r.p.m. records, but was not very apparent on LP records and the Compact Disc medium. However, as a part of radio history several monologues have been recorded. The spoken word as dialogue and theatrical tool has most often been recorded in the form of radio transmissions.

Just as long as humans have utilised language they have probably also used music in a performance setting. Of the multitude of concerts in public and private music life, it is but a tiny fraction of these events that have been documented through sound recordings. But the ability to mass produce sound recordings has lead to the establishment of a dedicated recording industry. In later years this part of the music business has come to have an increasing effect on the contents of the rest of musical life.

In the audio visual area it began with music for the silent cinema. It has been partially documented through musical notation, but there have also been recordings made in the aftermath. The development of sound films and multi track techniques enabled film music and film sound to establish somewhat independent conventions for sound. This has been further refined in the medium of television, which also to a large extent employs the signal effect of sound to distinguish between different programmes.

Even though we humans perceive sound in different ways, there will always be some degree of inter subjectivity connected to the experience of sound. This may be due to factors linked to the actual aural milieu or the public space. We only have to consider how different the experience of an outdoor rock concert can be compared to that of an indoor setting such as a restaurant, hall, church or in our living room at home. The properties of sound are firmly tied to the surroundings, and it is natural to distinguish between open and closed spaces.

It is easy to forget the acoustic properties of sound during a building project. The design of modern concert halls, often to be used both for acoustic and electric music, places great demands on architects and engineers. Successful solutions can result in very good sound experiences. Much of today's problem is that one uses old and sometimes new rooms to reproduce sound for which they are not suitable. Acoustic music demands a whole different setting than rock music, for example. Although it is getting increasingly common to hear rock groups in churches, we must remember that most of these were never built for concerts with such sound pressure levels. Just as much of a problem can be those rooms that are unsuited for the use of human speech. Some assembly halls and conference rooms can be a chaos of sound, with limited opportunity for the reception of the intended message. Schools and homes with "open" solutions as an architectonic basis are not paying full attention to the acoustic properties of sound, resulting in limited reception of sound.

The breakthrough of the recording industry and a plethora of radio and television channels are putting their mark on our society in quite a different way than before. Various background sounds are used in telecommunications, art exhibits, restaurant visits, shopping and travelling. We have grown so used to these forms of background sounds that we hardly notice its presence. On the other hand it is not always by accident that certain sound backgrounds are used. It is possible to speak of a signal effect, e.g. in relation to which customers a shop caters to.

Loudspeaker based distribution of sound has emphasised the use of sound as a signal and communicatory element, but there are also conflicts created by personal sound signals in the public space. Watch alarms, the ringing of mobile telephones and auto theft alarms are some examples of sounds that are undesirable in a concert hall of chamber music.

Because of the uniqueness of sound and its communicative properties we have seen that a meaningful characterisation of sound will always have to relate to factors on both the sending and receiving end. In the course of developing a preservation plan for Norwegian sound recordings the following question of delimitation has reared its head several times: What are the criteria for calling a sound recording Norwegian? Exactly because sound has such communicative properties and because a sound recording always will have two components, the carrier and the content, the development of such criteria of delimitation becomes quite intricate. In this report we will mention some possible ways of thinking about the preservation of everyday sounds and the sounds that are part of our national frame of reference.

Sound defined as pressure waves gives little room for national rights of ownership. Only when these waves are related to a sender or listener or both can aspects of belonging be established. On the side of the recipient it is quite possible to establish criteria for the Norwegian sound. The most obvious criterium will have to be:

In order to be considered a Norwegian sound it must be possible to hear the sound in Norway.

Such a criterium will include a lot of sounds that are not very specific to Norway, for which the preservation responsibility will belong to other nations. This applies to all forms of internationally released sound recordings such as Compact Disc, cinema, radio, television and video cassettes. On the other hand, this criterium will exclude some sound that may be of interest to us. This applies to sounds by and with Norwegians abroad in cases where the sound has not been recorded or distributed in such a way as to make it audible in Norway (e.g. interviews with Norwegian emigrants etc.).

An important factor concerning the sender is sound produced from works by Norwegian rights holders or based on ideas of Norway and Norwegian nature and culture. The first category (often referred to as Norvegica) includes all performances of the works of Norwegian composers, or performances by Norwegian artists. The second category includes all performances by other nationals whose starting point is an idea of what "the Norwegian sound" is. Such recordings tend to be very difficult to find for preservation purposes, and so they will mostly fall outside the scope of this work.

The degree of Norwegian-ness of a sound will vary with different criteria for what is typically Norwegian. If this is to happen, it is necessary to have some inter subjective agreement on distinguishing characteristics of the Norwegian. Only to the extent such characteristics have been described and referred to in another linguistic context will attempts at defining the Norwegian sound on the basis of the listener's criteria be feasible.

It is only when the listener associates the concept of "Norwegian" with certain aspects of the sound that the phenomenon of Norwegian sound is established.

If we are to establish criteria for the Norwegian sound, these qualities of the sound also have to be expressible in a linguistic context (since criteria are a set of linguistic rules for use in our perception of phenomena in the world around us). But setting up linguistic characteristics of sound perceptions will usually imply a heavy reduction of information compared to the original experience represented by the sound experience. It is exactly because the sound has qualities that are non-lingual that there is an interest in sound. This is also mirrored in the use of metaphors and gestures that abound in those descriptions of sound used among musicians and other "sound people".

Listener oriented criteria of the Norwegian sound can be established within groups of people where the possibility of inter subjective consensus is present. This kind of consensus arises in a mutual process between members of a culture that use cultural expressions as elements for creating a feeling of identity in their existence. Such a mutual process is similar to the process behind the development of the Norwegian language as a meaningful system of sounds where each single sound contributes to the Norwegian tone of language. If we isolate each of the sounds of Norwegian pronunciation and mix them up with other language sounds we will only to a certain degree be able to determine which sounds are Norwegian.

Likewise it will be impossible to draw up clear distinctions and delimitation criteria for what are Norwegian sound recordings. There will always be a process where new examples of sound phenomena are connected with the Norwegian in some way or other. A small example of this was Rolv Wesenlund's imitation of the opening of a Harry Belafonte song. "Day-O" in his role as Marve Fleksnes. Although the origin of this phenomenon was very far from having to to with Norwegian culture and history, it became very characteristic of parts of the Norwegian sound environment for a while.

It is still possible to single out certain criteria on both the receiving side and the sender side for what can be called the Norwegian sound. In the context of preservation it is natural to begin with the sender and the question of copyright. Many sound archives have foreign material in their connections and based on the context it may be important to preserve this material also. If the collecting was done by a Norwegian, this may in itself be enough reason to include the collection in a preservation plan. So, historic sound material must sometimes be assessed in a historic context that does not limit itself merely to the Norwegian.

Based on a total assessment we have chosen for the development of a protection strategy to use the following wide framework for the evaluation of Norwegian sound recordings or the Norwegian sound:

The sound recording must document Norwegian culture or history, or it must be audible in Norway in a defined context.

We have made some suggestions and presented possible perspectives for a discussion of this context, but do not want to be any more specific about the criteria at this stage. As a definition it will have considerable problems attached if the aim of a preservation strategy is to be the complete preservation of all Norwegian sound recordings. But as part III: The protection of Norwegian sound recordings will explain, the aim is not to preserve everything, but to establish the conditions for a strategic protection of this documentation of Norwegian culture.

When Edison's tin foil phonograph was demonstrated at the Tivoli in Kristiania in the summer of 1879 only one and a half year had passed since Edison's invention had become known on a world wide basis. Music vendor Peder Larsen Dieseth recorded a psalm during the demonstration, and this was the start of an epoch of phonographic recordings that lasted well into the 1920s. In Norway the phonograph and the phonograph rolls were king of the hill until 1904. Even though Edison sketched out possibilities for the phonograph in several fields, the phonograph was viewed as a curiosity during those first years in Norway too.

Little is known about the extent of private recordings made in Norway in the 1880s, and of whom such recordings were made. Towards the end of the decade there is some mention of the phonograph, and among those with the keenest interest in the talking machine was the musically inclined King Oscar II, king of Sweden and Norway. On December 4, 1889 the phonograph was demonstrated at the royal castle in Stockholm. In the same year the actor and hairdresser Adolf Østbye acquired his own recording equipment. All his phonograph rolls start with an announcement of the names of the performers, and the name of Østbye Records. The oldest playable recording we have in Norway dates from September 1889, with the blind singer Andreas Pedersen and his accompanist Hans Karlsen. The recording was made in the home of Adolf Østbye then living in Aakebergveien in Kristiania.

In the 1890s and round the turn of the century private recordings were made of singers, actors and other notable persons. Music vendors in Kristiania may have sold the phonograph rolls, and it is not inconceivable that many of the recordings had been made under their direction. The best known vendors were Peder Larsen Dieseth's music shop, Abel's phonograph dealership and Thv. Gjestad & Co, all in Kristiania.

During these years there were many theatres and varieties in Kristiania and several of the actors later became stars of the phonograph and gramophone in Kristiania, and in a newspaper review mention is made of a planned orchestra recording of the tunes from the revue "Tutti Frutti". The revue was a great success in the capital, and was performed for 101 full houses at the Eldorado, which then could house 2.000 spectators.

In 1893 Henrik Klausen read one of his favourite stories "Fanden i Nødden" ("The Devil in a Nutshell") for the phonograph recorder. Klausen was one of that century's most popular actors, and he also took part in the first Norwegian gramophone recording in Kristiania in 1904.

Johan Arnt Widnes (1849 - 1929) from Fredrikstad also made a pioneer effort towards the end of the century through his many phonograph recordings of well known people. Like many Norwegians, he set out for America at the beginning of the 1880s. He was probably quite open to the influences of the American entertainment industry at the time, and when he returned after some ten years he brought a phonograph from America. He also began slide performances to the accompagniement of phonograph music. In spite of an eye disease that made him blind, Widnes still became a pioneer for the propagation of and interest in sound and film in Norway. On March 11, 1906 in the Workers' Union in Fredrikstad Widnes displayed moving pictures from the King's arrival in Kristiania in the autumn of 1905, and the phonograph played speeches by the delegates at the Karlstad talks. It is not known whether these recordings of Christian Michelsen, Carl Christian Berner, Jørgen Løvland and Paul Benjamin Vogt are in existence today.

The phonograph recordings became increasingly well known around the turn of the century, and more recordings were made involving Norwegian actors. In 1900 opera singer Thorleif Allum recorded "Ack Värmeland du sköna", and that same year Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson recorded two psalms from the porch of his house Aulestad. Also the composer and pianist Agathe Backer Grøndahl is supposed to have recorded, but no trace of such recordings can be found today. The Telemark fiddler Lars Fykerud (1860 - 1902) may also have recorded during his time in America in the 1890s, and round the turn of the century folklorist Rikard Berge made phonograph roll recordings of about 120 melodies played by the fiddler Knut Dahle (1834 - 1921).

During the 1879 - 1904 period the phonograph was practically the only choice in the market for sound recordings. (Although some discs such as Sousa recordings started trickling into Norway with foreign artists in 1901 - 03.) Information from musical circles, sound archives and individuals with knowledge of local recordings give a certain impression of in which parts of the country there are phonograph recordings from the earliest period of Norwegian recording history.

Eastern Norway outside Oslo
In the east there seem mainly to have been recordings made with musicians from Numedal and in the Østerdalen valley. In Fredrikstad there was cinema pioneer Johan Widnes, and he made several private recordings, among them some of King Oscar II.

Around Oslo
It all started in the capital with Peder Larsen Dieseth in 1879. We know that the actor Adolf Østbye made recordings, and probably also some of the city's music vendors (Dieseth, H. Abel etc.).

The south (Rogaland, Agder and Telemark)
In the south we know of recordings from the Agder counties and Setesdal especially. From Telemark there are several folk music recordings.

The west (Hordaland, Sogn og Fjordane, Møre og Romsdal)
There don't seem to have been to many private phonograph recordings made in the West, in spite of strong musical traditions in all three counties.

Central Norway
Nor do the Trøndelag counties tell many stories of old phonograph recordings. 120 rolls have been preserved at the Ringve Museum, but only three are Norwegian and they are all commercial.

Northern Norway
In Northern Norway it was the interest in Sami culture that led to some recordings being made on phonograph rolls. During the period 1910 - 1915 it was the Swede Carl Tiren who actively collected recordings of the Sami people. At Stockholm's Museum of Musical History there are 270 rolls of recordings mainly from the Swedish side of the border, but partly also from the Norwegian side. The Finn Vaino Salminen made recordings of Sami joik in Swedish Lapland and Tromsdalen which are mentioned in Armas Launi's book "Lappische Juoigos-Melodien", published in Helsingfors in 1908.

Family recordings
At the time round the turn of the century some of the ones who emigrated to America brought with them a phonograph back to the old country. There are many tales told of this, and of recordings being made of relatives and friends. As it became possible to purchase playback equipment in Norway it became popular to make greetings back and forth through the use of phonograph rolls. Many such rolls have been preserved, but there is often scant information of who is talking or singing.

The Gramophone Company was the first recording company to make recordings in Scandinavia. As early as 1899 recordings were made in Stockholm and Copenhagen with Swedish and Danish artists. In 1903 The Gramophone Company established sister companies in Stockholm and Copenhagen. In Norway the Brødrene Johnsen company was given the sole agency for Skandinavisk Grammophon A/S in December 1904. Before this time several Norwegian artists had made recordings other places than in Oslo. Edvard Grieg had made his piano recordings in Paris, opera singer Ellen Guldbranson in Copenhagen and the singers Inga Berentz and Magna Lykseth-Skjerven in Stockholm.

The first Norwegian gramophone recording was made at the Grand Hotel in Kristiania on Thursday, December 8, 1908. It was photography pioneer Adolf Østbye who had the honour of becoming the first gramophone artist, with his parody of "Terje Vigen". The first recording sessions lasted until Saturday, December 10, and among other participating artists were: accordionist Carl Mathiesen, revue artists Agnes Haglund and Oscar Lerdahl, actor Henrik Klausen, opera singers Gabrielle Bidenkap, Nathalie Hansen, Clara Hultgren, Halfdan Rode and Thorvald Lammers, plus the Guldberg Quartet.

The content of the recordings was centered around humorous stories, revue songs, folk songs, operettas and other classical songs. The two most popular recordings seem to have been Østbye's and Mathiesen's "Bal i Hallingdal" and Klausen's "Lattersang", both published in several pressings, both for the Norwegian and the foreign market. In the years that followed The Gramophone Company returned to Kristiania every autumn to make new recordings. The gramophone industry was getting a foothold in the country, even though a gramophone in one's home was a luxury. Instead it became common to have gramophones in cafes and for evening entertainment in clubs and at various occasions.

It was through advertising and sales from the music vendors, mainly in Kristiania, that recorded phonograph rolls were sold to private citizens with playback equipment. There was not much propaganda for sound recordings until gramophone records entered the market.

The Johnson brothers held Norwegian agencies for the Gramophone Company, and in 1908 they set up a great tour of gramophone concerts around the country. All the largest cities were paid a visit and there was huge interest. The newspapers, which did not pay much attention to the first gramophone recording sessions in Kristiania, carried detailed accounts of these gramophone concerts, and the verdict was unanimous: this was impressive! On the programme was 18 artists, such as the singers Enrico Caruso, Adelina Patti, Vilhelm Herold, Marcel Journet, Titta Ruffo and Francesco Tamagno. Among Norwegian artists one could hear Hans Ingi Hedemark, Halfdan Rode and Jacob Endregaard. There were full houses and the stages were decorated with flower arrangements and gramophones - and a background of flags. In addition to several da capos, the audiences were given Klausen's famous "Lattersang" (Laughing Song) as an encore. 5.2.2 Early musical genres and artists in the gramophone market

Songs and revues were as well represented as classical song and it was from these two categories that most recordings stemmed. Among instrumentals it was the accordion and military music that dominated, but folk music and the Harding fiddle are also represented in these earliest recordings.

In the time round the turn of the century revue songs were performed in places such as Tivoli, the Eldorado theatre and the Dovrehallen in Kristiania. Among the revue artists and story tellers we can hear from the years 1905 - 10 are Adolf Østbye, Johannes Dehn, Oscar Lerdahl, Hilda Fredriksen, Hauk Aabel, Harald Stormoen, Agnes Haugland and Harald Otto. From the same period we also have recordings of revue artists from the Hjorten in Trondheim and artists from the tradition rich revues of Fredrikstad. The genre of cabaret arrived with Bokken Lasson's Chat Noir and it became a success from the beginning. There are gramophone recordings of all the artists who participated in the famous opening night of 1912, such as Bokken Lasson's performance of "Tuppen og Lillemor".

The accordionist Carl Mathiesen (1870 - 1933) participated in the first gramophone recording in Norway in 1904, and he was able to make some 15 recordings before migrating to America. Another accordion pioneer by the name of Jens Larsen (1856 - 1925) made close to 70 gramophone recordings. The accordion was well suited for gramophone recording, and there were about 50 accordionists who recorded during the acoustic period up to 1926. The recordings enjoyed wide distribution both in Norway and in Sweden. Waltzes, polkas and reinlenders by Gotthard Erichsen, Christian Liebak or Johan Elsmo were highly sought after gramophone recordings. Some of the accordion artists had enjoyed stays in America, and popular rhythms such as the cake-walk and ragtime can be found on some of these accordion records, although it would be wrong to say jazz was on its way into Norwegian living rooms yet.

Military music was popular and well known to a large audience, so there was a great deal of recordings made with military bands,mainly the Brigademusikken / Stabsmusikken during the first years of the gramophone.

The Gramophone Company seemed to have little interest in recording Norwegian folk music. The tradition of the phonograph period was not carried on until William Farre began making recordings for the Pathé company. Still, there are no more than 20 artists' recordings preserved. Most common are the records with Haldor Meland, Eilev Smedal, Kristiane Lund and Arne Bjørndal. In 1910 William Farre visited Voss and made recordings with Sjur Helgeland, Magnus Dagestad and Ola Mosafinn (1828 - 1912) probably the oldest Norwegian artist we have preserved recordings of.

We have good aural documentation of the opera stars with careers from the 1880s onwards. Around 110 Norwegian singers have been documented through gramophone and phonograph recordings during the acoustic period (until 1926). Among these are Ellen Gulbranson, Halfdan Rode, Thorvald Lammers, Borghild Langaard (Bryn), Hans Ingi Hedemark, Cally Monrad, Jacob Endregaard and Rolf Hammer. Among those opera singers that were known abroad were Olive Fremstad, Carsten Wold, Inga Ørner, Inga Berentz and Karl Aagaard Østvig.

It was Johan and Gudmund Johnsen who in the year 1900 had started the Brødrene Johnson A/S company, selling among other things blueprints and dynamite. They later expanded into musical instruments and barrel organs, and in December 1904 they acquired the sole right to act as Agents for Skandinavisk Grammofon A/S. They created a lot of publicity around their agency and were soon able to move into new premises and offer their own recording studio. Their courage to press forward which led to the propaganda tour of Norway in 1908 is much of the reason behind a swiftly growing interest in the gramophone in Norway.

But already in 1905 a competitor entered the Norwegian market. The French Pathé company made an agreement with William Farre (at that time named William Johnsen) which gave him the right to Pathé's patents both in Norway and Sweden, later even in Denmark. Farre had his own recording equipment with which he was able to travel around and make recordings. In this he was alone, as the Gramophone Company only came to Kristiania on their recording visits to Norway. Because of this Farre was able to make recordings of artists living around the country, and especially in the field of folk music his efforts have been of great importance. Up to the middle of the 1920s Farre's Pathé records were sold, the records of the 17.000 series and the 90.000 series being the most notable among his Norwegian material.

The profession to most actively employ sound fixations was the researchers of folk music, and they preferred the phonograph to the gramophone. Rikard Berge (1881 - 1970) has written extensively about Norwegian folklore and folk culture. In an audio historical connection he made his mark by recording around 120 melodies played by the fiddler Knut Dahle. Around the same time recordings were also made of his grandchild Johannes Dahle. The grand old man of Norwegian folk music collecting, Ole Mørk Sandvik (1875 - 1976) started in 1916, doing phonograph recordings of several well known fiddlers, such as Martinus Amundsen Norstad, Martinius Helgesen, Johan Elgshøen, Jens Maurseth, Marius Nytrøen, Guttorm Eftestøl and Dreng Ose.

Folklorist Knut Liestøl (1881 - 1952) from Åseral made some phonograph roll recordings in his home region of Sørlandet. Approximately 20 recordings from the 1920s are known, including those of Lars Mjåland, Olav Knutson Liestøl, Aslak Høgetveit, Signe Liestøl, John Røynlid, Gyro A. Austergard, Gunnar Austegard and Aanund Koland.

A fourth folklorist and ethnographer who made sound recordings in the acoustic period was Christian Leden (1882 - 1957) from Inderøy. As an explorer he made extensive journeys to unknown parts, especially in the Arctic. He brought his recording equipment wherever he went, also on his visits to Norwegian villages, but his information about the individual recordings is rather inaccurate (e.f. "old man from Østlandet"). Around 1.000 of Leden's wax roll recordings have survived. Quite a few of the recordings are from East Greenland and Canada.

In the years up to 1910 gramophone records became more and more common and there were more companies entering the market. The Gramophone Company and Pathé were still dominant, but there were also many interesting releases from Columbia with their US releases of Norwegian artists and the German company Favourite even before 1910. The Great War was about to begin and the gramophone industry had entrenched its position in Norway as a suppliers of entertainment for an ever widening group of the population. No longer did artists feel above appearing in this medium, and the sound quality could be astonishingly good on some releases. The most accomplished company in this sense was the American Victor.

In the acoustic period (in Norway until 1927) the phonograph and the gramophone were the only media for sound recording and distribution of sound recordings. From the late 1920s came the talking pictures and radio broadcasts, later also the tape recorder making possible the recording of radio broadcasts etc. In spite of competition from these new media, the gramophone companies retained their position as the main supplier of sound recordings through all of the 20th century.

The transition from acoustic to electric recordings took place during the years 1925 - 27, and marks an important watershed in the history of the gramophone industry. Bell Telephone Laboratories in the USA spearheaded the development of the electric recording technique, which offered a much wider frequency range than the acoustic. Where the acoustic record had a frequency range of 200 - 2.000 Hz, the electrically recorded records had a range of 70 - 9.000 Hz, resulting in a radically improved presence. From 1927 all companies made electrical recordings, and the interest in gramophone records increased.

the gramophone industry had been through some lean years around the 1914 - 18 World War. After 1918 there was a period of growth, but in the mid 1920s radio brought competition, creating a short turn downwards. Towards the mid 20s there was another bull market, and 1929 was a record year for the European gramophone industry. In Norway 700.000 records were sold in 1929. In Sweden that year there were 3 million records sold, and in Finland 1 million. Norwegian sales stayed on the same level in 1930, then came years of slumping sales. In 1931 400.000 records were sold, in 1932 300.000, in 1933 only 100.000 records and then in 1934 sales went up again, to 200.000.

Norway did not have its own record production until 1935, and until then we depended on the agencies of the big record companies. It was HMV that started record production in Norway in 1935. Raw materials came form England, and the factory had 4 record presses, each with a capacity of 500 discs a day. From 1936 economic conditions for the recording industry improved. In 1937, the 50th anniversary of the gramophone, Norwegian record sales had reached 500-600.000 records a year. In the summer of 1938 the first HMV recordings under Norwegian direction were made (earlier one had to borrow both equipment and technicians from England). The actors Aase Bye and Tore Foss had the honour of being first, singing a medley from "The Merry Widow". The National Theatre's choir and orchestra participated in this recording in June 1938.

Record sales were soon to head downwards again, with Norway's entry into World War II. This lead to slow years for the gramophone industry. There was a shortage of raw material, making it necessary to deposit old records in order to be able to buy new ones. After World War II it took some time for the record industry again picked up, but at the beginning of the 1950s the sales of records were again high in Norway. At the end of the 40s PVC materials had started to be used, and the first foreign 45s and LP records came on the market. In 1950 the record companies agreed on standard speeds for their records, 16, 33 and 45 r.p.m., and during the 50s the 78 r.p.m. records gave way, disappearing from the Norwegian market in 1957 - 58.

The Gramophone Company (HMV), Odeon and Pathé were the dominant record companies in Norway in the acoustic period. Electric recording brought in some smaller labels, such as Brunswick, Parlophon and Polyphon. Columbia started making recordings in Norway in 1928.

In the 1930s a dominant position was held by Electric & Musical Industries (EMI), while the war years gave German companies Odeon and Telefunken a strong position. Norsk Grammofonkompani A/S gained in importance from 1949.

This table of Columbia releases in the 1928 - 1934 period indicates the repertoire of the period:

Even with such Norwegian world stars as Kirsten Flagstad, Kaja Eide Norena, Ivar Andresen etc, the classical repertoire did not fare very well in the period 1927 - 50.

Each of the major companies had its favourite artists. During the first years of electrical recording, the hit artists were mainly male. Odeon had Steinar Jøraandstad and Einar Rose, HMV had Aage Brandrud, Magnus Samuelsen and Zetterstrøm and Kristoffersen, Columbia had Jens Book-Jenssen and later Alf Prøysen, Parlophon had Øivind Lunde, Telefunken had Reidar Andresen and Musica had Kurt Foss and Reidar Bø. The first women to make a breakthrough were Tutta Rolf and Rita Drangsholt. The transition to electrical recording also marks the coming of orchestras. There were also several instrumentalists, such as Alfred Maurstad (harding fiddle), Robert Riefling (piano), Toralf Tollefsen (accordion) and Ottar E. Akre (accordion).

Category	1928 - 1934
Popular music	151
Revue	57
Accordion	11
Classical	30
Folk music	18
Religious /Christmas	25
Brass band /military	7

In conclusion, gramophone recordings from the 1927 - 1950 period represent a great historical asset which should be preserved for posterity. Recordings from the earliest part of this period are unique, and mirror our cultural life in an interesting way. The cultural importance of sound recordings has been underestimated in Norway.

The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, NRK was established in 1933, but there was a broadcasting history starting in Norway in the early 1920s. A private company had begun broadcasting from Oslo in 1925. The 1933 transition to state broadcasting was justified by the need for a fuller geographic distribution and the desire to make a concerted effort towards bringing educative and non commercial programmes to the people.

The NRK Radio Archives have recordings dating back to 1934, when the first "sound conservation apparatus" from Telefunken was purchased. In 1935 280 recordings were made on 1.630 discs.

In 1936 a Philips-Miller sound film system was installed, and this was used by the NRK until 1950. Tape recorders were first bought in 1938, and a couple of years later broadcast quality tape recordings became the norm in radio production.

Stereo transmissions started in 1971 from Oslo, later covering the whole country.

In 1997 yet another revolution is ahead. Programme production will move from tape recorders to computers. Programmes will exist as computer files, and what medium will hold these files in the long run is still uncertain.

The NRK Radio Archives were established in 1957 under the direction of Tor Kummen. Five years later the holdings were estimated to be 40.000 gramophone discs, 4.500 Philips Miller film tapes and more than 14.000 magnetic audio tapes.

Magnetic tapes had the economic advantage of being reusable, but of course this was bad news for archiving, since economic value too often was given precedence over the potential historical value of a recording.

DAT cassettes have come into production use from 1992, and also have entered the archives. The only safety copy in existence is the QIC (Quarter Inch Cartridge) cassette delivered to the National Library as legal deposit.

A project has been proposed in which the 40.000 audio tapes in the NRK Radio Archives are to be converted into digital audio files that can be accessed for programme production and for research and documentation purposes through the National Library. The original tapes will be archived in the National Library's storage vaults inside a mountain in Mo i Rana.

Radio recordings are important sources for research into the events of the past. Even though the recordings date back to 1934, they include the voices and statements of people whose frames of reference go even further back in time.

There is a special significance of the recording that lets you "be there" and hear historic events as they take place. Not only the factual content of what is being said, but also the ambient sounds lend credibility to the recordings. You can hear the court rising before Quisling receives his death sentence, you can hear the excitement around the Bislet skating rink during the Oslo Olympics when Hjalmar Andersen takes home the 10.000 m speed skating medal.

There is no way of safely assessing which moments in history are the "eternal moments"; our understanding of this will always be subject to change. This makes it important to have a broad range of subjects and moments preserved.

The reuse of recordings is a way of bringing them alive. Including the sound bites of yesterday in today's programmes is likely to improve their value. The archives contain quality material that could provide content for a range of historical programmes beyond the mere reading of historical texts and quotations.

Finally, the archives contain material of great importance as sources for historians. Especially the study of Norway in World War II has benefited from the recordings of the occupants and their cohorts.

Mankind has always had a need to communicate. The interpretation of sounds has been important, and in many cases a need has been felt for a way to repeat what has been said, in order to clear up misunderstandings.

Sources from China, Greece and Egypt describe magical contraptions that could reproduce the human voice. From the land of the Pharaohs come the tales of the singing Memnon statues, erected along the Nile by Amenhotep III. Closer to our time there is the story by Baron von Münchhausen of the notes frozen inside a bugle in Siberia. He played a signal when outside, and after he brought the bugle in from the cold it played the whole concert.

There is also a more realistic description by the French author Cyrano de Bergerac (1619 - 1755). He writes that human speech or music can be preserved in a box with four mechanisms, which then can replay the sound using a needle. This is a remarkable description of the phonograph or gramophone to come more than 200 years later. It is sad that not one single scientist took an interest in Bergerac's ideas - which could have been made into reality in the 17th century!

Year	Event
1877	Edison's Phonograph
1887	Berliner's Gramophone
1898	Poulsen's Telegraphone (Wire Recorder)
1912	Edison's Disc Phonograph
1920	Electrical recording
1927	AC Bias
1928	Magnetophone (Pfleumer)
1930	Dailygraph (Curt Stille)
1931	Stereo disc
1948	LP record
1949	Single record
1955	Stereo tape recorder
1958	Stereo LP
1963	Philips Compact Cassette
1967	Dolby Noise Reduction
1982	Compact Disc (CD)
1986	Digital Audio Tape (DAT)

Phonograph rolls
Edison's Phonograph was produced until 1918, while the recordable rolls were available until 1929. Edison started out covering the cylinder with tin foil, later improving the sound quality and durability by using wax.

The gramophone
Berliner's Gramophone patent included a horizontal movement for the needle, as opposed to the "hill-and dale" principle, used by Edison in both his rolls and discs.

Pathé discs
This system recorded the sound on phonograph rolls which were then transferred mechanically to so-called Pathé discs. These are found in a variety of speeds and sizes, and are not playable on a normal gramophone.

Electrical recordings brought better frequency range and dynamics, leading to higher record sales; in the US more than 100 million records were sold in 1927. The stereo LP and single record became the dominant format, lasting until the 1980s.

Magnetic tape
The forerunner of the tape recorder can be found in Valdemar Poulsen's Telegraphone, utilising the magnetic principle of induction. Wire recorders could never compete with the sound quality of cylinders and discs. When magnetic tape was invented, the groundwork was laid for a versatile and long-lasting medium, both as reel-to-reel tape and later in the form of the compact cassette.

Optical carriers
The compact disc is probably the greatest innovation in the reproduction of sound since Edison's wax cylinders. After a slow start, CD sales soon overtook the vinyl LP and left it behind. The medium will be with us in the foreseeable future, and many more formats based on the same form factor have appeared. Most promising seems to be the DVD, (Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc).

The producers of gramophone records and cylinders have always kept registers of their recordings through a numbering system called matrix numbers. The internal matrix number catalogues usually contain information about the date of recording, which artists participated in the session and whether the recording has been used in a released product. Usually the matrix number is engraved on the sound carrier itself, and differs from the record number which can be found printed on the label of the disc. Together these two numbering systems offer good opportunity for correct identification of the recording.

The cover of a record can also contain information about the recording. The covers of old 78 records were never or rarely used for such information, but when LP records came on the market, the album cover became an important identifying factor. This tradition has been passed on to the CD cover, although it is smaller in size. In addition, the CD makes it possible to include matrix numbers and any other information in the data recorded on the disc itself. There is still not international agreement for a standard way of coding this information, and which information should be included.

The identification of magnetic reel-to-reel tapes and compact cassettes are dependent on the information in the supplementary material. Especially privately recorded compact cassettes are prone to mix-ups if the written information resides on a loose card inside the plastic cover.

It must be stressed that the surrounding material is of the utmost importance in obtaining an understanding of the sound recordings, and it is therefore important that this material is preserved, possibly by transfer to another medium.

The primary surrounding material consists of record covers and record catalogues. Articles in periodicals and reviews in other media are considered secondary material, but there may be very important information here too.

There is often a need for a third level of information, and this can be found in discographies and catalogues of sound collections. In Norway collectors such as Vidar Vanberg and Tom Valle have made important contributions in this field.

There are three governmental levels of responsibility for safeguarding sound collections in Norway, besides the private efforts.

At the top level, the state channels economic support to sound collections through institutions tied directly to the ministries, such as the National Library, The National Archive, the University Libraries and the Universities. There are other institutions, such as the Norwegian Jazz Archive, that are partially supported through the State Budget, and the Norwegian Council for Cultural Affairs grants support to certain projects.

The Fylkeskommune (county level) is responsible for regional archives, some counties have specific archives for folk music.

The Kommune (municipality level) supports the collection and preservation of sound through the local museums and music archives.

An important part of the work with a preservation plan has been the mapping of existing sound collections. This is not an easy task, and the aim has not been to produce a complete list of sound collections in Norway.

100 questionnaires were mailed, and 56 of these were returned. We do not consider this a good percentage. The reasons for the low response rate may be several; the recipient did not feel the collection was relevant, the idea of filling out yet another form might be too much of a strain, and it may be that some private collectors did not want the public to know about their collection.

In Appendix 1 there is a list of the respondents, while Appendix 2 lists the numbers of different carriers in those collections.

The Act applies to audiovisual and electronic documents as well as traditional paper material. The Act is directed towards publishers, producers and importers of documents that are made available to the public. It also covers those who by concession or law have the right to broadcast.

According to the regulations of the Act this material is to be deposited with several national institutions. Sound recordings are to be deposited with the University of Oslo Library , National Music Collection, which sends one safety copy to the National Library, Rana (NBR).

Broadcast material is to be deposited in one copy only to the National Library, Rana. Since the Act came into effect, the National Library has received about 400.000 hours of radio and television recordings, from the NRK Programmes 1, 2 & 3, Radio Norway (Short wave), the NRK Sami Radio and 17 regional NRK channels, besides the private radio channel P4. Television channels deposited include NRK1, NRK2, TV2 and TVNorge. One week of local broadcasting was collected in the fall of 1996, resulting in around 1.000 cassettes and tapes from more than 100 broadcasters.

This Act has a paragraph which forbids the export of objects of cultural value if they are more than 100 years old. Until recently, sound recordings have not been old enough to be covered, but in the years to come this Act can be of help in protecting Norway's earliest history of sound from being sold to the highest bidder abroad.

The copyright law was last revised in 1995 to bring it in step with international legislation. Most noteworthy was the extension of copyright until 70 years after the death of the copyright holder.

The ownership of a copy of a work does not carry with it the copyright, neither for a private person or a public collection. This is so even if it is the original of the copyrighted work that has been given or sold to the new owner. There is an important distinction between the right of ownership attached to a copy, and the copyright to the contents of the copy.

When an archive wishes to make copies from a work or display the original, this touches the rights of the creators of the work. All distribution of such works must be based on contracts and agreements made with the copyright holder or organisations that have the right to bargain collectively on the copyright holders' behalf.

There are special regulations in the law concerning the right to make copies for preservation purposes.

The new forms of electronic delivery of content makes it necessary to develop legislation and interpretations of that legislation that can serve the rights both of the copyright holders, the owners of collections and the public.

The main objective of a preservation plan for Norwegian sound recordings is to arrange for the documentation of Norwegian history and culture through the use of sound recordings.

There is a time aspect here; an object must be preserved before it can be accessible. The main point is that it must be preserved in a way that will increase access. Since the content of the recording usually is of more interest than the physical carrier, the systematic arrangement of surrounding material can give information of great help before one chooses which recordings to listen to. Accordingly, preservation must include the surrounding material.

The following chapters will account for some conditions for a concerted preservation effort. We will establish criteria for the assessment of sound recordings and collections, and we will describe the four phases of protection (collection, preservation, accessibility and distribution) in order to have a basis for setting priorities.

We offer our descriptions as a contribution to a common base of knowledge for the discussion of priorities.

Sound collections belong on many different administrative levels, and although a national network for sound preservation can be established, there will still be a conflict between professional priorities (strategies) and the administrative allocation of resource. We hope this plan can at least help in getting a common set of reference.

Because Norway has such a variety of sound collections, it is important to develop a national network of competence rather than one centre of competence. To make this a dynamic network it is necessary to assign areas of responsibility to some of the actors. These can be named as "nodes of competence", and must possess or develop professional competence that will enable them to have a special responsibility for development and advice within their areas. The competence should be attached to thematic and / or methodic subject fields.

There are however some relatively large institutions that have not been developed on the basis of a networking philosophy. The material that resides in these centralised collections must be made accessible to all uses of the network.

It is desirable that the National Library should be given the overall responsibility of developing a functioning network of competence for Norwegian sound collections.

In order to make preservation work effective, there is a need for a more thorough and updated system of training. There are a lot of competent archivists, but many of the personnel that are assigned to the care of sound collections have not had adequate training for this. They must be given a chance of professional training, particularly in the field of using computers for digitisation and network presentation. Participation in the national Conference of Norwegian Sound Archives, The International Association of Sound and Audio-Visual Archives (IASA) and its Nordic Branch will be of great importance here.

Playback equipment is a prerequisite for making it possible to hear sound recordings. Original reproduction equipment is not only necessary to have in order to play back certain carriers; it is also a documentation in itself of how recording and playback was done.

As a general rule, the contents of all existing phonograph rolls should be transferred to new media, as more and more wax rolls now are falling apart , in part due to bad storage. When transferring rolls (and older discs) it is important to find the correct playback speed.

There are also modern methods for the playback of rolls and older discs. Most common are electrical playback systems which include features for noise reduction, but some use optical readers in combination with digital techniques.

There are some early (1980s) digital tape formats that are now extinct and the contents of these tapes will soon be unplayable when the few machines made for these formats no longer work. It is important to have these tapes converted to a standard digital tape or file format.

Many archives lack the equipment to reproduce old sound material, and the solution is to get help elsewhere. The National Library is able to play back all analogue tape formats at a variety of speeds.

Inspired by the wording in the Nature Conservation Act one could define the preservation of sound recordings in the following way:

Although sound as the product of a human activity usually also includes other/visual activities, there is still a considerable amount of artistic and scientific experience to be gathered from sound recordings.

To assess the potential value and need for preservation of a sound recording, these tables can be used:

A collection is a gathering of several sound recordings, and one institution may have several types of collection.

Before deciding which action to take, it is necessary to compare several collections. But an assessment of the specific collection must also be made, touching on most of these points:

According to the types of collection mentioned above, one can locate collections in this table:

VALUE	Regional / National	Professional	Special Qualities
****	The collection is typical of a geographic area otherwise lacking or is little documented elsewhere.	The topic of the collection is without serious flaws and is well documented. The topics are well catalogued.	The collection contains unique recordings. The collection has high educational value.
***	The collection is typical of certain traditions which are also documented elsewhere in the country, but it contributes in important areas.	The topic of the collection has lasting flaws, but is mainly intact from source to reproduction. The topics are well researched within some sub-topics, and are well catalogued.	The collection has recordings of great regional or topical value. Parts of the collection have been subject of professional assessment, and the collection is of high educational value.
**	Parts of the collection have regional reference value, but this will mainly function as a supplement to other collections. Material mainly of local interest.	Parts of the collection has reference value, but it is otherwise limited due to lasting technical intervention and flaws in content. The professional status has been partly assessed, and the material has been systematised but maybe not catalogued.	The collection has recordings of some value. Parts of the collection have been used in professional contexts, but there are other collections which fuller cover the topics in question.
*	The collection contains little material of regional reference value. The region is well documented in other collections.	The collection is already limited through lasting technical intervention and lacking in content. It is not systematised or catalogued.	The collection contains recordings of little value both regionally and professionally.

(See 10.1)
Norwegian releases:
If the legal deposit is to be effective, it is necessary for the publishers to take their responsibility seriously. This is feasible for the ones that are in the business a long time, but it is harder to reach those who maybe only do a few releases and disappear. It is difficult to get hold of releases that are not distributed through the well-known channels, and as a result many sound recordings evade legal deposit.

Foreign productions:
Ideally all recordings that can be related to the Norwegian sound ought to be deposited. The question is who is to be responsible for depositing the recordings. In the regulations to the Act, the obligation to deposit has basically been attached to releases by Norwegian record companies. This raises the question of those Norwegian artists who are published by foreign or international companies. Although the importer is supposed to deposit, these cases are not clear-cut. Some do and some don't. In order to get releases by such artists as Mari Boine, Leiv Ove Andsnes, Jan Garbarek, Morten Harket, Arve Tellefsen and Truls Mørk it has been necessary to collect them in other ways, usually by purchasing the releases as Norvegica.

The purchase of Norvegica should to a larger extent also cover foreign releases that are not imported or distributed in Norway. As an example there are hundreds of Grieg recordings which never reach Norwegian shores, but which would be of both artistic and scientific interest.

The Act or at least its regulations should be revised in connection with the reorganisation of the Oslo University Library and the National Library. There should be more resources assigned to give more information and clear routines should be established.

Ideally, all recordings could be considered endangered material, since all media are subject to deterioration in time. But selecting a protection strategy solely based on age is not to be recommended.

Inferior storage can also be an endangering factor. The solution is to move the material into a suitable storage environment, such as the one at the National Library.

The lack of knowledge about a sound recording may lead to irreplaceable material being discarded. It is important to locate and collect sound material which is of no interest to the owner, but may be of value in another context. Therefore it is necessary to set up a national network of competence in order to collect and preserve old sound material. The National Library should be an important factor in this work, but it is absolutely necessary to have a climate of cooperation with existing museums and sound collections.

It is important to have a long term perspective on preservation and selection for preservation. Over time the views of what is most important may change. As an example, the early tradition in collecting sound recordings was to arrange and catalogue the collection by composer, while there now is a desire to preserve recordings by certain performers.

We can see five kinds of actions that may be taken concerning sound collections:

The durability of a sound carrier is measured by its ability to reproduce the original signal.

The durability is to a large extent dependent on the conditions of storage. Storage is defined as the place the sound carrier resides when it is not in use. Important factors are:

The basic principle is as little touching by hand as possible. Fingerprints must be avoided, both because of chemical deterioration and to prevent dust from sticking. Alcoholic cleaning fluids may give good short term results but shorten the life of the carrier. Recommended tools are antistatic guns, fine fibre brushes and lukewarm water. Some mild detergent can be used, but it is wise to rinse this off with distilled water.

Mechanical wear must be kept at a minimum, by correct adjustment of needle pressure and the anti skating system.

Gramophone discs should be stored in a standing position, away from dust. Inner sleeves for LP records are usually made of polyvinyl, with the same chemical basis as the vinyl records themselves. This material is not good with regard to chemical deterioration over time, and the cling effect can be a hassle. Shellac discs must never be cleaned with alcohols; this may dissolve the shellac.

Phonograph rolls are prone to mildew and attacks by bacteria. In time they may become brittle, and in dry and hot storage they may develop cracks.

Magnetic tape will also wear out through repeated plays, but paradoxically, tape needs to be played or rewound every once in a while, say every 5 years, to lessen magnetic print-through.

To minimise mechanical wear it is important to have playback equipment of high quality and correct adjustment. Tapes will never be the same again after a break or tangle, even though they can be cut and spliced.

Some old tapes can fall apart because the binder between the base and the magnetic layer has deteriorated. This problem can be treated through careful heating of the tape.

Magnetic tapes should be stored in a stable climate, because variations in temperature and humidity will cause the tape to shrink and stretch. Most international recommendations call for a constant temperature of 16 - 17� C or lower, and a relative humidity of 35 % RH or lower. Material which is brought from storage to room temperature should be acclimated for at least 24 hours before playback. Tapes should be stored in an upright position, and should be wound "tail out" to avoid print-through. Finally magnets and strong electrical fields must be avoided.

When the Compact Disc was introduced it was said to be able to withstand very rough treatment, but years of experience have taught us to be at least as careful with CDs as with vinyl records, if not more. When errors in CDs become too many and too serious for the error correction circuits, there is a sharp drop out of sound, and the disc may suddenly turn out to be unplayable.

Optical discs of other kinds such as CD-Rs must be kept away from sunlight, preferably in dark storage. Optical discs have been tested for longevity in accelerated tests. The results predict a life of 30-200 years under optimal storage conditions and 5-100 years under normal room temperature and humidity. The variety of disc types and formulas account for the wide ranges in these predictions.

The most common reasons for wanting to convert sound contents to a digital format are:

Although the carrier may last for 100 years, it is no good unless one has the technology to play back the recording. As formats come and go with increasing frequency, it becomes more necessary to have the information in a form that can be copied to new formats with efficiency and with no further loss in quality. This is the promise of digital formats.

Although digital media will be with us a long time into the future, there is also reason to be critical towards the digitisation of analogue signals. Digitisation implies a reduction of the authentic sound, a loss of information depending in degree upon the sampling frequency..

A cooperative project between the NRK and the National Library, The Digital Radio Storage, part of the concept of Digital Synergy Radio, describes the plan for digitising 40.000 tapes from the NRK historical radio archives. The contents will be stored in the form of on-line computer files, accessible to NRK producers and to researchers besides, hopefully, the public. The project will take 6 years if the money is found. The legal deposit which today is carried out by way of Quarter Inch Cartridges (QIC) may then be switched over to an electronic delivery directly into the Digital Radio Storage.

A decisive factor in making sound collections accessible is getting an overview of where the various collections re situated, what they contain and in what condition the material is. Today there is no administrative unit that has this information, and cooperation between collections is incidental. Some have been represented at the Conference of Norwegian Sound Archives, which is useful. But to be able to implement a national preservation plan we need as complete knowledge as possible. The survey "Sound in Norway" supports the view that there is no time to lose if we are to get a thorough mapping done of this historical material.

Much of the material is stored under unsatisfactory conditions. It is important to discuss the transfer of material in need of preservation to institutions with good storage conditions. Such transfers can often lead to the return of the historical material to the original collection in a format that will make the recording more accessible than before, while safety copies also can be made.

In order to make priorities among collections, there is a need for standardised information about the sound recordings and their condition. Such information could become a union catalogue of sound recordings . But the main point of developing standards here is to increase the accessibility of the recordings. Accordingly, the standards should be adapted to the users of the collections.

There will have to be done a considerable amount of registration work to improve access. This work must be centrally directed and at the same time involve each local collection. Resources are needed for the national coordination.

The retrieval of documents (here: sound recordings) deals with establishing structures around the store of documents in order to enable effective retrieval of the individual document.

I: The search entry, which makes it possible to find one entry among many. Examples: names of people, paces and corporation, subject or classification codes. These are precise and unambiguous, which makes them well suited as search entries.

II: The description, which should contribute to the identification of the document, besides helping us get an impression of the document itself and its contents. Examples: physical description, summary, list of contents. The information contained in these fields is useful, but not for search entries, since it is not precise or unambiguous.

Additionally there must be information of the physical location of the document.

Information technology is well suited as a tool for establishing and defining standards. The establishment of name registers lessen the chance of misspelling etc. Using Information technology also makes geographical distance less of an obstacle.

It could be possible to use more sources to register information related to a sound recording. Again, standards are of the utmost importance, and the Dublin Core Metadata initiative is the best known work in this direction. Whatever sort of computer catalogue one chooses, one should aim at making digital catalogues accessible via national and international networks. If a cooperative effort could be made to reach standardised meta data formats, this could form the basis for a more efficient cataloguing process because much of the information about a sound recording could then be attached to the recording from when it is first produced.

The other important use of information technology is for the storage and distribution of the sound. We now have the means for making the sound document itself accessible via the computer networks. By distributing both catalogue data and sound files on the network both geographic and physical restrictions are suspended. But at the same time the problems connected with copyright and compensation for use are multiplied.

Using information technology can lead to simpler and less expensive distribution, thereby enabling the archives to serve their users swifter, better and cheaper. But there will have to be investments made for this to become possible. Still, equipment costs and the costs of digitising are relatively small compared to the need for human resources in cataloguing and restoration work.

Only when a sound collection can share the cultural history managed by the collection, can the material be said to be managed in accordance with the ultimate goal of all preservation. This responsibility must become accepted by and assigned to the various institutions. It is vital to see the consequences of the separation between the right of ownership and the author/creator's rights.

Still, the most important management responsibility is that of safeguarding the collections, including making safety copies. But that very task also includes the chance to make much of the contents more distributable.

Like other museum-like institutions, sound collections have by tradition had limitations placed on their distribution systems. You mostly have to visit the institution to be able to enjoy its collections. But a closer cooperation between collections would make possible a more extensive computer network based distribution system.

The real breakthrough in the distribution of material from sound collections will be the establishment of digital sound archives on the Internet or its successors. Pilot projects such as the Jukebox project have shown the technology to be ready, but the biggest challenge will still be the cataloguing, besides the development of user friendly systems.

Previously most of the "sharing" of a sound collection had to be done by writing articles and books about the material, costs for distributing sound digitally now appear to allow re-release/distribution of the material itself to a much larger degree. But there are factors to watch, such as the question of copyright and payment systems. It will also be necessary to decide upon what sorts of surrounding material to link with the new release.

All distribution of sound recordings must in principle be based on agreements between the parties involved, collectively or individually. Researchers have a right to access even to protected material in their research. As a general rule research status should at least be accorded to professional personnel attached to universities and other places of higher learning. But with a superior goal of helping to make possible a documentation of Norwegian history and culture, the duty to make accessible should really also benefit all who take an interest in that history an culture, including people in the field of education.

It is difficult to strike a balance between increased income from the commercial sale of the contents of sound recordings on the one hand and preservation strategies and the demand for free access and distribution on the other.

One should endeavour to find out the costs of distribution, distinguishing between the work and overhead costs and the costs of materials and copying.

This report aims at establishing the basis for a preservation strategy for Norwegian sound recordings, so that the preservation work can get started. At present, the conditions for carrying out a unified preservation plan for Norwegian sound collections are not met. There is a need for closer cooperation between existing institutions, and there is much work left to be done in the field of registering and cataloguing the collections. Carrying out a preservation plan also requires new resources for this sector.

The plan for action presented here therefore must be seen as the first steps in the direction of a unified preservation plan. The measures recommended here must be carried out very soon, both because significant material stands the risk of deterioration, and because these are basic measures for an effective and comprehensive preservation of Norwegian sound recordings.

The following measures are of the greatest importance for future preservation work:

The implementation of a preservation plan for Norwegian sound recordings is a national task, and accordingly the chief responsibility for the embodiment of the strategy developed in this report should lie with the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. The composition of such a council can be discussed in the light of different administrative principles, so the working group will not propose the exact representation at this point.

Any preservation work will demand resources, and although it is possible to channel the use of resources of the different sound collections so that the work of preservation can be better incorporated than today, there will still be a need for extra resources. Such a national task should be under the direction of a Ministry and accordingly the cost should be included in the State Budget.

The NBR should be given the responsibility for coordinating the network building and operation. Furthermore the NBR must be used more for safety copying and the storage of safety copies. Such a use of the NBR will improve access to the material of the collections through the production of relevant access copies in connection with the making of safety copies.

Initially it will be necessary to implement the network between Norwegian sound collections by use of postal mail, since this will ensure that as many as possible receive the information that will be generated in the network. But the establishment of a computer based network should also begin immediately, especially if the government push for Information Technology in the library sector can be utilised to permit the cooperation of sound collections. In connection with the reforms in the school system there will be a growing need for making the history of Norwegian sound available by a digital network.

When the reorganisation of the Oslo University Library and the National Library, Oslo, takes place, it will be natural to decide where to lay the responsibility for developing guidelines for a union catalogue. Such a responsibility should also include the implementation of such standards, both technically and pedagogically vis-a-vis the other sound collections.

Information is important, but if the task of establishing an adequate network is to get under way, there is a need for considerable training of the personnel attached to Norwegian sound collections today. Such an effort should be coordinated with the establishment of standards for registering and cataloguing of sound recordings, and in this way it can contribute to a quick establishment of an effective network of Norwegian sound collections.

As soon as this network is established, work should be started on a survey of the contents of the collections, and a better qualitative description of the recordings should be sought. It will be of special importance to be able to ascertain which are to be defined as Norwegian sound recordings and which are foreign, since the funds for preservation will remain limited. Such a survey can form the basis of a new type of catalogue of Norwegian sound collections.

The continuation of the Conference of Norwegian Sound Archives will be of central importance. Up to now it has functioned as a meeting-place for sound collections of very different size and character, but the working group feels that these meetings have brought positive impulses to the personnel involved with Norwegian sound recordings. The conference has also invited people from related activities in the field of sound, and in this way it is an important forum for information to many categories of professionals.

Several other areas have been touched upon through this report, and some instances will be commented on here:

The number of recordings in different formats is shown. Numbers in parentheses refer to the list of collections. These numbers (with no parentheses) are also used to show whether catalogues exist. Example: COMPACT DISCS: 1250 (49) means the Trondheim Music Conservatory (Collection #49) has 1250 Compact Discs.

CONTENT	Professional	Regional / national
How unique?
How representative?
How endangered?
Educational value?
Documentation?
Action required?

SOUND CARRIER	Technical	Historical
How unique?
How representative?
How endangered?
Educational value?
Documentation?
Action required?

Glyn Alkin:	Sound recording and reproduction (Focal Press 1991)
Benet Bergonzi:	Old gramophones (Shire Publications Ltd. 1991)
George Brock-Nannestad:	P� sporet av lyden (Kbh 1987)
Svein Erik B�rja:	Stereo og hi-fi (H.Aschehoug & Co, 1978)
Peter Copeland:	Sound recordings(The British Library 1991)
Hans Fredrik Dahl:	"Hallo-hallo!" Kringkastingen i Norge 1920-1940. (Oslo 1975)
Hans Fredrik Dahl:	"Dette er London". NRK i krig 1940-1945. (Oslo 1978)
Kristian Dahl:	Edison. Hans liv og opfindelser ( Kbh.1897)
Per Dahl:	Jeg elsker dig p� 252 m�ter! (Oslo 1993)
R.& C. Dearling:	The Guinness Book of recorded Sound (London 1984)
Ray Edmondson:	A philosophy of audiovisual archiving. (Bogensee 1994)
Tommy Frenning:	Kassettboken (Dreyer, 1977)
Pekka Gronow:	Tv�rspel. Trettioen artiklar om musik. "The 78". G�teborg 1984
Pekka Gronow:	The record industry; the growth of allmenn mass medium. Popular Music 3 ( Cambridge 1983)
Henrik Haugst�l:	Teknikk Musikk. Br�drene Johnsen As. Gjennom 50 �r (1950)
Yngvar Holm:	Vi spiller plater (Gerlyngs forlag 1957)
Yngvar Holm og Finn Jor:	Platesurr - grammofonen 100 �r (Norsk Kunstforlag 1977)
Tor Kummen:	Arkivet med det rare i. (Omkring, februar 1961 s.2-8)
Bj�rn Winther Larsen:	Innspilt lyd. Fra fonograf til grammofon (artikkel: Volund 1993)
Otto C. Lund:	Opfinderen Thomas Alva Edison (Kbh.1901)
Rudolf Muus:	Kristianias forstadsscener og deres skuespillere (Oslo 1924)
Thor Ormestad:	Elektrisk (elektromagnetisk) innspilling (artikkel; Volund 1993)
Ken C. Pohlmann:	Principles of digital audio (Howard W. Sams & Company 1989)
Howard C. Sanner jr.:	Kirsten Flagstad Discography (University of Maryland 1980)
Sigvart Strandh:	100 �r med inspelat ljud (Stockholm 1977)
Steinar Tranung:	B�ndopptakeren (Vett & Viten A/S, 1990)
Tom Valle:	Publikasjonsserien Norske diskografier
Vidar Vanberg:	Norges f�rste grammofonstjerner og grammofoninnspillinger (Oslo 1982)
Vidar Vanberg:	Norsk lydhistorie 1879-1927 (1996)
John M. Woram:	Sound recording handbook (Howard W. Sams & Company 1989)
Kulturdepartementet:	Skape- Bevare - Formidle Grunnlagsmateriale for en IT-plan for kultursektoren
NOU. 1984.3:	Fr� informasjon til kulturarv
NOU. 1988.28:	Med viten og vilje
NOU. 1993.24:	Lov om universiteter og h�gskoler. Lov og rett i Norgesnett
NOU. 1996.7:	Museum. Mangfald, minne, m�testad
Riksarkivet:	Adressearkiv. Folketellinger
St.prp.nr.4 1972-73:	Verneplan for vassdrag
UNESCO:	Memory of the World (1995)
Universitetsbiblioteket:	Avis- og tidsskriftarkivet. Navneregisteret og Utklippsarkivet.

	PHONOGRAPH ROLLS	SUM
Quantity	8 (22), 15 (27), 1022 (30), 101 (39), 1000 (50)	2146
Catalogue	27, 30, 39, 50	4

	PIANO ROLLS	SUM
Quantity	50 (7), 630 (39), 100 (50)	780
Catalogue	39, 50	2

	BARREL ORGAN ROLLS	SUM
Quantity	1 (7), 2 (36), 8 (39)	11
Catalogue	36, 39	2

	�" ANALOUGE TAPES	SUM
Quantity	600 (2), 16000 (4), 302 (9), 1123 (13), 338 (14), 1198 (15), 80 (16), 840 (17), 400 (19), 1168 (20), 131 (21), 13.100 (22), 530 (23), 1040 (24), 304 (25), 449 (27), 110000 (29), 34137 (31), 363 (32), 12600 (33), 165 (34), 24 (36), 1276 (37), 10 (38), 167 (39), 3400 (40), 22 (41), 165 (44), 2000 (48), 1400 (50)	203480
Catalogue	2, 4, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 37, 39, 40, 41, 44, 50	26

	2" ANALOUGE TAPES	SUM
Quantity	8 (3), 660 (22), 31 (40)	699
Catalogue	22	1

	CASSETTES	SUM
Quantity	269 (1), 1000 (2), 36 (3), 80 (4), 200 (5), 335 (8), 44 (9), 99 (10), 30 (11), 6 (12), 1080 (13), 325 (14), 542 (15) 217 (16), 50 (17), 69 (18), 50 (19), 790 (22), 6 (23), 320 (24), 791 (25), 106 (26), 300 (28), 1000 (29), 3000 (30), 116 (34), 621 (35), 279 (36), 1386 ( 37), 100 ( 38), 92 (39), 30 (40), 68 (41), 319 (44), 30 (45), 903 (47), 1500 (50), 10 (51)	16199
Catalogue	1, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 18, 19, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28, 34, 35, 36, 37, 41, 44, 45, 47, 50, 51	25

	DAT	SUM
Quantity	25 (4), 54 (8), 25 (9), 55 (10), 85 (12), 290 (13), 42 (14), 10 (17), 100 (19), 50480 (22), 90 (23), 315 (24), 1400 (26), 300 (28), 2500 (29), 7399 (31), 1500 (33), 50 (38), 150 (40), 1454 (46)	66324
Catalogue	4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 17, 19, 22, 23, 26, 28, 29, 31, 33, 46	16

	U-MATIC/VIDEO	SUM
Quantity	50 (2), 71 (22), 1650 (40)	1771
Catalogue	2, 22, 40	3

	78 r.p.m. RECORDS	SUM
Quantity	100 (2), 120 (4), 500 (5), 28 (7), 3 (12), 10365 (13), 100 (19), 379 (21), 150 (22), 18000 (30), 50000 (32), 2480 (39), 15 (40), 14000 (50)	96240
Catalogue	12, 19, 22, 30, 32, 39, 50	7

	SINGLES	SUM
Quantity	100 (2), 70 (4), 3 (13), 8 (21), 65 (22), 12 (24), 34 (30), 35000 (32), 6000 (33), 60 (40), 7000 (50)	48352
Catalogue	22, 30, 32, 33, 50	5

	LP RECORDS	SUM
Quantity	1822 (1), 200 (2), 450 (4), 8250 (5), 20086 (6), 16 (7), 38 (13), 30 (17), 683 (20), 238 (21), 700 (22), 140 (24), 7000 (26), 460 (28), 24000 (30), 135000 (32), 12500 (33), 808 (34), 800 (38), 807 (39), 300 (40), 2100 (49), 9000 (50)	225428
Catalogue	1, 5, 6, 20, 22, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34, 38, 39, 40, 49, 50	15

	COMPACT DISCS	SUM
Quantity	2607 (1), 110 (4), 4320 (5), 8000 (6), 7 (8), 3 (12), 100 (13), 10 (17), 75 (20), 99 (21), 1655 (22), 100 (24), 5000 (26), 400 (28), 20 (30), 152 (31), 30000 (32), 30000 (33), 320 (34), 700 (38), 350 (39), 200 (40), 1250 (49), 3000 (50), 105 (51)	88583
Catalogue	1, 5, 6, 8, 12, 22, 26, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 38, 49, 50, 51	16