Imagine if your favorite song or nostalgic recording from childhood was lost forever. This could be the fate of hundreds of thousands of audio files stored on vinyl, except that the Internet Archive is now expanding its digitization project to include LPs.
Earlier this year, the Internet Archive began working with the Boston Public Library (BPL) to digitize more than 100,000 audio recordings from their sound collection. The recordings exist in a variety of historical formats, including wax cylinders, 78 rpms, and LPs. They span musical genres including classical, pop, rock, and jazz, and contain obscure recordings like this album of music for baton twirlers, and this record of radio’s all-time greatest bloopers.
Unfortunately, many of these audio files were never translated into digital formats and are therefore locked in their physical recording. In order to prevent them from disappearing forever when the vinyl is broken, warped, or lost, the Internet Archive is digitizing these at-risk recordings so that they will remain accessible for future listeners.
Once cataloged, the LP’s are then digitized. The Internet Archive partners with Innodata Knowledge Services, an organization focused on machine learning and digital data transformation, to complete the digitization process at their facilities in Cebu, Philippines. An Innodata worker digitizes 12 LPs at a time, setting turntables to play and record by hand, then turning each record over to the next side. Since each LP is digitized in real time, it takes a full 20 minutes to record an average LP side. By operating 12 turntables simultaneously, the team expects to be able to digitize ten LPs per hour.
