The Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project is a free digital collection maintained by the University of California, Santa Barbara Libraries with streaming and downloadable versions of over 5,000 phonograph cylinders manufactured between 1895 and the mid 1920s. University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) is a coeducational public university located on the Pacific Ocean in Santa Barbara County, California. ... The earliest method of recording and reproducing sound was on phonograph cylinders. ... 1895 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or primarily in North America and in Australia as the Roaring Twenties . In Europe it is sometimes refered to as the Golden Twenties. ...

History

The project began in 2002 as a pilot project to test the feasibility of digitizing cylinder recordings on a large scale for preservation and public access and explore issues related to the preservation and digitzation of cylinder records. In 2003, the Institute for Museum and Library Services funded the project with a grant for $205,000 and between 2003 and 2005 UCSB library staff cataloged and digitized over 5,000 of the cylinder recordings in the library's collection. The website was released to the public on November 16, 2005. November 16 is the 320th day of the year (321st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 45 days remaining. ... 2005 (MMV) is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Scope of the Collection

The archive consists of a broad range of cylinder records manufactured between 1895 and the mid 1920s. The majority were produced by Edison Records in Orange, New Jersey, but the collection also contains cylinders produced by the Columbia Phonograph Co., Indestructible Records and other companies. The majority of the cylinders in the collection are music and include band recordings, popular songs, vaudeville, opera arias, and music for solo instruments such as banjo, violin and accordion, but the archive also contains speeches, comedic monologues and home recordings. Edison Records was the first record label, pioneering recorded sound and an important player in the early record industry. ... Orange is a township located in Essex County, New Jersey. ... Columbia Records is the oldest continually used brand name in recorded sound, dating back to 1888. ... Vaudeville was a style of multi-act theater which flourished in North America from the 1880s through the 1920s. ... Old 6-string zither banjo 4-string banjos The banjo, derived from the banjar, is a stringed instrument of American origins, sometimes called the gourd banjo. The banjar, in turn was based on the African akonting. Some etymologists derive it from a dialectal pronunciation of bandore, though recent research suggests... Violin The violin is a stringed musical instrument that has four strings tuned a perfect fifth apart. ... A button accordion An accordion is a musical instrument of the handheld bellows-driven free reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as squeezeboxes. ...

The archive currently is just the cylinders in the collection of the UCSB Libraries. Other libraries, including the Library of Congress and Bowling Green State University, have contributed cylinders to the project for preservation and digitization as have private collectors. The Project accepts donations of cylinders but at present does not add digital files of cylinders from other collections. Library of Congress, Jefferson building The Library of Congress is the unofficial national library of the United States. ... Bowling Green State University (BGSU) is a public, four-year institution located in Bowling Green, Ohio, USA; about 20 miles south of Toledo, Ohio on I-75. ...

External links

• The Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project website
• Pilot Project website