New wax cylinders discovered - Chief O'Neill recordings

[Joseph E. Smith]

I love the Taylor set.

[Ross]

I'm happy to look at hosting anything interesting you can digitise on my music website:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/music/

I've also had problems dealing with archives, in a number of countries. Librarians often tend to see such collections as a means of arguing for budget increases.

There are sources of charitable funds for putting stuff into the public domain, notably George Soros' Open Society Institute, which can be approached for grants. (Curiously, when I told one museum curator about this he seemed offended, as if its very existence queered his next funding pitch to his ministry

Ross

[sean an piobaire]

I have to add my two cents, I talked to Mary Dunn on the phone in 1977, at the same time Jim did, and Mary said she had given the cyclinders to the Boy Scouts, during World War Two, for the War Resources Board materials drive (recycling,natch). I was appalled at the loss, and labored away under this idea for years, until I heard from Jim McGuire last year, that it wasn't true! Thank that Piping Deity! Mary did say that she called Sargeant Early "Uncle Jim", and I told her not to sell Early's pipes (or Micheal Dunn's set) at that time, to a well known collector that was angling for them.
As to the Library of Congress, if you are a citizen of the USA, you can contact your local congress member(woman or man), and request a copy, free of charge, of anything that they hold. It does help to have the Access/Catalog Number,Title,etc. The office will direct the LBC to do this because IT IS the Congressional Library, after all! Citizen Sean Folsom

[kkrell]

As to the Library of Congress, if you are a citizen of the USA, you can contact your local congress member(woman or man), and request a copy, free of charge, of anything that they hold. It does help to have the Access/Catalog Number,Title,etc. The office will direct the LBC to do this because IT IS the Congressional Library, after all! Citizen Sean Folsom

Do you have a reference for this - I'd like to know more, and about any restrictions. For instance, I have copyrighted material submitted to the Library of Congress (as required to register your copyright). Does this mean it can be handed around to any requestor, rather than purchased?

Kevin Krell

[Jim McGuire]

There are limits to any service and the Library of Congress has all of that worked out. You might contact them directly.

There is a tape of Liam O'Flynn at the LofC ca. 1975. One great aspect of Liam's performance playing is that he 'works through' material regularly. A concert in the 1970s is wholly different from 1980s, 1990s, etc. One contributing aspect toward why I feel that Liam if the best piper going. So, that tape in the LofC should feature tunes that he was playing then such as O'Carolan's Concerto, Travellers, Cup of Tea, Fisherman's Lilt, etc.

[King of Canavoy]

There is a technology available that the Library of Congress is looking into involving a particle physics array. It is an unintrusive way to digitize an old shellac record or wax cylinder. I guess it maps the lines on the disk/cyliner and uses a computer to replicate the needles reaction to it. It's really quite amazing, all the while filtering noise from the damages recordings. Don't hold your breath waiting for old uilleann pipes recordings to come out on CD though, they're working on the really important stuff first. I imagine we rate pretty well down the list.