There’s a fascinating article that just appeared in the New York Times about Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, the man who made a sound recording (of a woman singing) that predates Edison’s.
Since preservation is an obsession of librarians, Scott’s biography is interesting:
Scott is in many ways an unlikely hero of recorded sound. Born in Paris in 1817, he was a man of letters, not a scientist, who worked in the printing trade and as a LIBRARIAN (emphasis mine). He published a book on the history of shorthand, and evidently viewed sound recording as an extension of stenography. In a self-published memoir in 1878, he railed against Edison for “appropriating” his methods and misconstruing the purpose of recording technology. The goal, Scott argued, was not sound reproduction, but “writing speech, which is what the word phonograph means.”
But is it really a sound recording or a transcription of sound that was never intended to be played…?
Scott’s device had a barrel-shaped horn attached to a stylus, which etched sound waves onto sheets of paper blackened by smoke from an oil lamp. The recordings were not intended for listening; the idea of audio playback had not been conceived. Rather, Scott sought to create a paper record of human speech that could later be deciphered.
Granted, preservation of digital formats is a serious concern, but who knows if one day there will be a way to play back data that no longer has a player to play it? Or that seems damaged beyond repair. Some awfully smart people are already trying.
You know the expression, “If walls could talk?” Maybe walls will talk one day. Maybe we’ll be able to play back conversations that take place in a room by scanning the paint. Shudder to think!
Example of an ancient playing device from 1976 a.d. The Panasonic boom box prototype. It played something called “cassette tapes.” (The final product spread hip-hop around NYC… “You know I can’t live without my radio!”)
Librarian trumps Edison? Scott seems to think he did. At any rate I’m curious about what folks think about this article…I’m sure there are tons of people in the library world that know more about preservation than I.
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