Digitization, preservation and presentation - Serbian sound heritage

Vesna Aleksandrović

Review of the National Center for Digitization, Tome 13 (2008) no. 1.

Résumé

National Library of Serbia is carrying out project Digitization of 78 rpm Gramophone records for four years and it goes to its final phase. Working hard on this project, National Library of Serbia preserved and made available recordings which present Serbian sound cultural heritage by its everlasting artistic, social, cultural, ethnological dimensions. Going deeper in researching and exploring of earliest Serbian sound heritage it has come to light that many institutions and collectors all over the country, possess various sound recordings on so many different carriers. These remarkable recordings can be lost for good by leaving them in inadequate conditions and far from public. Therefore, National Library of Serbia is willing to establish National Sound Archive, with one and most important goal - to collect, preserve and present (to domestic and foreign public) oldest Serbian sound Heritage. Along with help from administration, National Sound Archive has to acquire equipment, software for sound restoration, servers, and to create user-friendly database and interface for digital objects and metadata presentation. As pioneer institution in Serbia, National Library of Serbia would like to take active role in NSA establishing and help all institutions which are ready to start digitization, by placing its knowledge, resources, stuff and experience at disposal. Goal, structure and organization of NSA will be presented by walking through test database and interface along with explanation of each step of digitization and sound restoration process.