This press release was posted to another list I'm on (related to music, not history or genealogy), but I thought it would be of interest to some here. (Seemed to recall that LVA has WRVA's historic music collection.) -- Rosanna Bencoach



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS TO HOLD PUBLIC HEARINGS ON PRESERVING AMERICA'S RECORDED
SOUND HERITAGE

The Librarian of Congress James H. Billington and the National Recording
Preservation Board (NRPB) of the Library of Congress are conducting public
hearings in November and December to gather information for a study about
the current state of recorded sound preservation and restoration in the
United States. The results of the study will be used to draft a
comprehensive plan for a national audio preservation program, as directed by
Congress in the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, P.L. 106-474.

Open to the public, the hearings will be held on November 29 in Los Angeles
at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel and on December 19 in New York City at
the Princeton Club of New York. For additional information on hearing
locations and times, please visit www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb.

To help gather information for the plan, the Library of Congress and NRPB
also are seeking written comments from the public before next year's
deadline of January 29. The Library is specifically interested in receiving
feedback from several sectors:

.  Representatives of major and specialized sound archives and institutional
collections holding commercial and unpublished sound  recordings, .  Major
and independent record labels, .  Audio engineers, whether affiliated with
corporations and institutions or self-employed, .  Scholarly and
professional organizations involved with the production, study, use or
preservation of recorded sound, .  Individuals with personal and often
specialized collections of recorded sound, including published and
unpublished materials, and .  The legal community and academic or other
specialists in copyright, fair use and intellectual property law as it
pertains to preservation of and access to protected sound recordings.

Additional information, including procedures for testifying or submitting
written statements, is available at NRPB's Web site
(www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb) or by contacting Steve Leggett (202/707-5912,
[log in to unmask]) or study coordinator Rob Bamberger (202/707-1122,
[log in to unmask]).

The complete transcripts of the hearings and written comments will be
published in a report to Congress. The Library hopes to raise public and
private recognition of the importance of recorded sound preservation by
developing a comprehensive national recording preservation program. In
addition, the program will allow the Library, in consultation with NRPB, to
identify initiatives to help solve the challenges faced by the various
stakeholders. Universities and archives of all sizes, museums, libraries,
record companies, and other stakeholders operate in different environments,
and the program will recognize and highlight these important differences.

Established by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, the advisory
NRPB is appointed by the Librarian of Congress and consists of
representatives from professional organizations of composers, musicians,
musicologists, librarians, archivists and the recording industry. Among the
issues that Congress charged the board to examine were access to historical
recordings, the role of archives and the effects of copyright law on access
to recordings.

The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution
and the largest library in the world, containing more than 132 million
items, including more than 2.8 million sound recordings.


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