Another new major project from the Internet Archive: The public availability of 78 rpm records is a fact and is being released today with 26,000 records.
The project brings a digitized archive of 78 rpm records and according to the project's homepage, members will have access to more than 200,000 recordings.
78 rpm records were released between 1898 and 1950. The most popular and commercially successful recordings have been reissued as LPs or CDs, but many people do not have them.
Internet Archive the new Project
Commercially viable recordings have been restored or have already been converted to LP or CD, as there is still research value in often rare records and 78rpm recordings. Already, over 20 collections have been selected by the Internet Archive for physical, digital preservation and public access.
Digitized copies of the original 78 rpm recordings retain all the imperfections and surface noise of the recordings. The recordings were released primarily on Shellac, a fragile predecessor to the LP.
The project page lists all available records and provides search and filtering options. Filters give you options to narrow down your results in many ways. You can filter by year, by collection, by creator, or by language, for example.
The dominant language of the recordings is English, but you can find hundreds of recordings in other languages such as Polish, Spanish, Italian or German.
The names of the artists featured in the project include: Bing Crosby, Guy Lombardo, Gene Autry, Jim Dorsey, Paul Whiteman, Glenn Miller and others.
The page contains information about the recording, publisher, digitization, user comments, and download options. Various file formats are provided, including FLAC, OGG, and MP3. There is no option to download an entire collection at this time.
The new collection seems to be extremely interesting for music fans and researchers.
See the new project
https://archive.org/details/78rpm
