Ever think the world could learn from, and protect better, the treasures that are 78rpm records? Lets do something about it:

Join the Great 78 Project!

[press: Atlas Obscura, The Vinyl Factory, Philly.com, The Verge, SFist, @great78project ]

[All 78’s on archive.org and the masterfully digitized 78’s on archive.org]

The Great 78 Project is a community project for the preservation, research and discovery of 78rpm records. From about 1898 to the 1950s, an estimated 3 million sides (~3 minute recordings) have been made on 78rpm discs. While the commercially viable recordings will have been restored or remastered onto LP’s or CD, there is still research value in the artifacts and usage evidence in the often rare 78rpm discs and recordings. Already, over 20 collections have been selected by the Internet Archive for physical and digital preservation and access. Started by many volunteer collectors, these new collections have been selected, digitized and preserved by the Internet Archive, George Blood LP, and the Archive of Contemporary Music.

We aim to bring to light the decisions by music collectors over the decades and a digital reference collection of underrepresented artists and genres. The digitization will make this less commonly available music accessible to researchers in a format where it can be manipulated and studied without harming the physical artifacts. We have preserved the often very prominent surface noise and imperfections and included files generated by different sizes and shapes of stylus to facilitate different kinds of analysis.

78s were mostly made from shellac, i.e., beetle resin, and were the brittle predecessors to the LP (microgroove) era. The format is obsolete, and just picking them up can cause them to break apart in your hands. There’s no way to predict if the digital versions of these 78s will outlast the physical items, so we are preserving both to ensure the survival of these cultural materials for future generations to study and enjoy.

Please join this project to:

Donate 78s. We have 200,000 78s, but we are always looking for more. We will digitize your collection and preserve the physical discs for the long term. To get the process started please fill out this form.

We have 200,000 78s, but we are always looking for more. We will digitize your collection and preserve the physical discs for the long term. To get the process started please fill out this form. Include your digitized collection. If you have already digitized 78s or related books or media, we’d like to include your work in the collection.

If you have already digitized 78s or related books or media, we’d like to include your work in the collection. Digitize your collection. We’ve worked hard to make digitization safe, fast and affordable, so if you’d like to digitize your collection we can help.

We’ve worked hard to make digitization safe, fast and affordable, so if you’d like to digitize your collection we can help. Share knowledge. Help improve the metadata, curate the collection, contact collectors, do research on the corpus, etc.

Other projects with an online listening component include the National Jukebox by the Library of Congress and many uploads on YouTube.