Saving our music heritage

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-10/uosc-ss101415.php

Public Release: 14-Oct-2015
Sticky situation
Scientists address magnetic audiotape's potentially catastrophic degradation in storage, called 'sticky-shed syndrome'
University of South Carolina

The end of this summer marked the fortieth anniversary of the release of Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run. If reminiscing fans felt a wave of nostalgia for one of the iconic albums of popular music, they likely also experienced a less-pleasant undertow in realizing just how much time has passed since their rock 'n roll glory days.

Springsteen fans aren't alone if they're feeling their age, though. Some of their mementoes are as well. The baby boom generation was the first to have a fairly comprehensive soundtrack of their era recorded for posterity, but the audio archive has proven to have a limited shelf life.

Time can erode the structural integrity of magnetic tape, which became the dominant medium for recording sound in the early 1950s. What's more, a deteriorated tape often doesn't look any different from one that is fine. The only way to find out is to run it on a tape player, where it might literally come unglued.

Essentially, that makes digitizing magnetic tape a game of Russian roulette for every reel. Fortunately, scientists at the University of South Carolina and the Library of Congress started studying the problem a few years ago. They've recently published a paper and are doing further work in the laboratory to develop a system that can readily separate good tapes from bad.

Time doesn't work alone to weaken magnetic tape. Its co-conspirator is humidity, the bane of curators everywhere. Water vapor can react with the polymers that make up the material in a tape. Even put in storage and never played, a tape runs the risk of developing what is called 'sticky-shed syndrome.'

•••••