Hannah Whitaker: 2023 Junior Fellows Program Display Day

About

For her project, Hannah Whitaker worked at the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC) processing 16 lacquer discs from the Universal Music Group (UMG) collection. Lacquers are grooved-disc formats of recorded sound, similar to vinyl, that were primarily used to record live sessions throughout the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. They were created by coating an aluminum disc with a thin, malleable layer of nitrocellulose, which grooves were then etched into using a lathe machine. Due to the age of the discs, coupled with the fragility of lacquer, many of the materials from the collection were in poor condition, requiring timely interventions in order to mitigate any further damage and preserve the music. As an avid record collector herself, Hannah became especially interested in learning the best practices for audio preservation, which led her on a journey across the NAVCC to speak with specialists in preservation, digitization, and restoration. These conversations with experts made clear the importance of timely damage mitigation and continuous preservation, as well as highlighted the cutting-edge technology used at the NAVCC to preserve and digitize music for generations to come.

Human-made No record of this work says a model made it. What this means.

Archive

Library of Congress, in Library of Congress: talks and concerts

Licence or status

Rights statement at the Library of Congress, as the Library of Congress states it.

Credit

Library of Congress

Language

English

Country

United States

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Tweens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed