Signal A Running Record of Findings from the Internet / October 31, 2026

Inside the UC Santa Barbara Lab Turning 78s Into Free Recordings

Dust-to-Digital spends a Friday morning at UC Santa Barbara with preservationist Ian Evans, touring the labs, cold vault and stacks of the archive that runs the Discography of American Historical Recordings, a database of more than 460,000 masters made during the 78rpm era. Dust-to-Digital's partnership with the university has put more than 10,471 recordings online free. In the Henri Temianka Audio Preservation Lab, Eric Ederer works through about twelve records an hour, around 4,500 this year, while students under associate editor Fran Smith decipher century-old Victor ledgers. A listener in Spain identified a test pressing UCSB knew only from old newspaper articles.

Read the story By Dust-to-Digital and April Ledbetter · Dust-to-Digital
Inside the UC Santa Barbara Lab Turning 78s Into Free Recordings
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