http://www.kk.org/kk/
Link: Kevin Kelly – KK* Lifestream.
ong Now member Jonh La Grou files this report: Will the music of Charlie Parker and Ella Fitzgerald be heard 100 generations from now? A major gift from David Packard has greatly increased the long odds on that. David's $150M bequeath, the largest private gift ever to the U.S. legislative branch, launched the just-opened National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC) of the National Library of Congress“ the world's largest and most comprehensive collection of films, television programs, radio broadcasts, sound recordings, and media collateral.
(((That's great news, although I find it impossible to believe that there will be a National Library of Congress, a Congress, or an American Nation "one hundred generations from now." Charlie Parker maybe, but a mere national government? Come on.)))
With stunning architecture both inside and out, the NAVCC becomes the world's most advanced A/V archiving and restoration facility“ Alexandria for the information era. The new facility atop Mount Pony VA is built into a converted cold-war era bunker previously used to store billions of paper dollars for distribution after a national emergency. When finished consolidating the Library's massive A/V collections, the NAVCC will contain more than 4 million historic film, video, and audio recordings lining more than 90 miles of shelves across nearly 1/2 million square feet beneath 45 acres.
Counting scripts, posters, and photos, the archive will host over 6 million items of historical interest. The Library of Congress asked me to design the analog electronics that will adapt a century of legacy audio formats for digital archival storage. The electronics had to exhibit world-class performance and be self-adaptable to every known historic release format, including Edison cylinders, acoustic and electric 78s, stereo 33s, and more. For me, it's one of life's profound opportunities to serve an integral role in the Long Now. (((Well, yeah. May the ages bless 'em, the Long Now.)))
I recently spent an entire day touring the near-complete NAVCC facility: giant storage rooms crammed full of every known media playback machine (including my friend Les Paul's multi-track prototype tape machine), a commercial-scale film development lab, one entire wing dedicated to media cleaning and restoration, scores of dedicated A/V archival transfer rooms, endless catacombs hosting 124 temperature controlled nitrate film vaults, and an authentic reproduction of David Packard’s beloved boyhood movie theatre in Palo Alto....
