James Maynard, University at Buffalo, SUNY In 2009, the Poetry Collection of the University Libraries, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, received a $202,241 Preservation and Access grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a two-year project to reformat, catalog and make accessible 1,000+ cassette and reel-to-reel audio recordings of poetry materials dating back to the early 1960s. Capturing poetry readings, lectures, interviews, conferences and other literary events, these tapes document the development of innovative and avant-garde poetries and their communities throughout the second half of the twentieth century as well as Buffalo’s role within that history. Readings by both canonical and non-canonical poets are featured in the collection, including such prominent American and international figures as John Ashbery, Robert Bly, Basil Bunting, Robert Creeley, Diane Di Prima, Ed Dorn, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Graves, Denise Levertov, Robert Lowell, Frank O’Hara, Charles Olson, George Oppen, Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, Diane Wakoski and Louis Zukofsky. This session will provide an overview of the audio migration project in general—its technical, cataloging, and copyright challenges—while highlighting its most innovative and creative aspects (which, I believe, are what secured us the NEH grant in the first place).

1. Hear @ Buffalo: The Poetry Collection’s Audio Migration Project James Maynard, PhD Assistant Curator The Poetry Collection [email_address]

4. PROBLEM: what to do about the “triple jeopardy” of audio recordings? “ The libraries and archives of the United States house a large and valuable heritage of audio recordings that span more than a century … [and] are an irreplaceable record of the history and creativity of the twentieth century. These collections are of enormous value for research and teaching. These rare and often fragile recordings, however, are in triple jeopardy: They are frequently not described or inventoried; they are orphaned by obsolete playback equipment; and they lack clearly documented rights that allow use. Making these recordings available to students and scholars can be difficult and costly. As a result, these collections are often underused.” Abby Smith, from Survey of the State of Audio Collections in Academic Libraries (Council on Library and Information Resources, 2004)

7. Our solution: NEH Preservation and Access grant In 2008 we applied for and were awarded $202,241 from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a two-year, $552,327 project to reformat, catalog, and make accessible 1,300+ cassette and reel-to-reel audio recordings of poetry materials. (This proposal was based on a recommendation contained in a 2007 preservation and planning survey of the University at Buffalo Libraries Special Collections conducted by a preservation consultant with the Northeast Document Conservation Center.)

8. Contributing factors to the grant award: I. Our approach to audio recordings as having a research value analogous to literary manuscripts II. Our approach to cataloging these materials

13. Phase II. Auditioning, cataloging, and researching permissions for each recording Trained by and working under the supervision of the Poetry Collection’s principal cataloger, student assistants auditioned each recording in its entirety, making notes regarding poem titles and other details gained from their listening. Sound recordings were divided by featured poet(s), with each group assigned to a particular student so that each could develop a particular expertise. Student catalogers were given texts of each poet’s works to aid in the discernment of titles. Templates were then used to aid in the students’ preparation of bibliographic MARC records, each of which was reviewed by the principal cataloger before being uploaded to the local UB Library online catalog and to OCLC’s WorldCat. Subsequently, a graduate student was hired as a permissions assistant to assess the primary participants on each recording, research the holder of their copyright, and begin the process of soliciting the necessary permission to make each recording available for wider off-site access through UB digit .

14. Working with students For the staff of the Poetry Collection, this project has been a wonderful chance to work with students in a mentoring role, having numerous opportunities for them to investigate and apply their growing knowledge of the work of individual poets from all over the map of twentieth-century poetics, the history of poetry in Buffalo, cataloging skills, the rights and exclusions of copyright, etc.

15. Phase III: Building a digital collection and streaming the recordings online The metadata from each of the MARC records will be transferred to UB digit , the home of the UB Libraries digital collections, where it will link with a streaming-only version of the audio file. Where possible, each recording will be supplemented by a scan of any extant posters in the Poetry Collection advertising these readings dating back to the early 1960s. All of the recordings will be loaded on to UB digit for on-site access (so defined by a local IP address or a user name and log-on) as allowed by section 108 of the Copyright Act. In those cases where permission is obtained from the relevant copyright holder, the recordings will be made available for wider access to everyone online. As of just recently, we have decided to call this digital collection “Hear @ Buffalo.”

16. Copyright Section 108 of the Copyright Act provides limited exceptions for libraries and archives to make copies in specified instances for preservation, replacement, and patron access on site. This exception allows for patrons to listen to service copies of the recordings in the Poetry Collection and to access from on campus a streaming version of them on UB digit . What is not allowed without explicit permission from the copyright holder is any wider access to the streaming files online from off campus. Therefore, a great deal of time has been spent researching the current copyright holder for each primary participant, and each will be asked to give such permission. While all of the records will be searchable for anyone visiting the UB digit site, the only ones that will stream for off-campus visitors will be a) those for which we have received the necessary permission in writing, and b) those orphan works for which no copyright holder can be located (until such time as one comes forward and either does or does not grant permission).

19. For more information: The Poetry Collection’s website: http://library.buffalo.edu/pl The Poetry Collection’s current gateway placeholder for “Hear @ Buffalo”: http://library.buffalo.edu/pl/collections/audioarchive.php UB digit : http://ubdigit.buffalo.edu Safe Sound Archive: http://www.safesoundarchive.com

20. Thank you Any questions or comments, please contact me at: [email_address] James Maynard, PhD Assistant Curator The Poetry Collection