Sound Recordings
Scope
This overview of the Library's collections deals with the holdings of the Library in sound recordings, exclusive of sound recordings of broadcasts. Radio Broadcasting is covered separately. It should be noted that there are sound recordings in the Library that are located in MBRS, but that are bibliographically controlled by the American Folklife Center.
Size
The Library of Congress holds the nation's largest public collection of sound recordings, including nearly every medium ever used to record sound and every genre of recording. The collections policy of the Recorded Sound Division is to acquire American recorded sound comprehensively, and in addition to collect a representative amount of material from all over the world. Selected statistics on holdings. We estimate the Library has nearly three million sound recordings and radio broadcasts in the following formats:
| Number of Sound Recordings by Type | |
| LP's | 700,000 |
| CD's | 35,000 |
| 78's | 650,000 |
| 16" acetate | 700,000 |
| 16" vinyl | 145,000 |
| 45's | 130,000 |
| Magnetic tapes | 250,000 |
| Cylinders | 47,000 |
| Other (wire, piano rolls, music box discs) | 13,000 |
| Total: sound recordings | 2,669,000 |
General Research Strengths
The Library of Congress acquired its first sound recording, a wax cylinder recording of the voice of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, in 1904, but did not begin to collect recordings systematically until 1925. At that time the Victor Talking Machine Company, in the interest of archival preservation, gave the Library a selection of its phonograph records, and rival companies followed its example. Because there was no U. S. Copyright law covering sound until 1972, the collection has mainly been developed by gifts from individuals and corporations.
The collection's major strength is probably its size and eclecticism. Particular strengths are operatic recordings, chamber music, and American music of all types: folk, jazz, musical theater, popular, and classical. The collection has also come to reflect the entire spectrum of recorded sound formats from wax cylinders to digital audio tapes, and include such diverse media as wire recordings, cylinders, aluminum discs, zinc discs, acetate-coated glass discs, and rubber compound discs. The holdings reflect a century of American life and culture and include a number of collections of unusual historic interest.
Areas of Distinction
Berliner Collection. A selection of recordings representing the Berliner Gramophone Company and the work of Emile Berliner, who invented the microphone and founded the disc recording industry. The collection includes items relating to the career of Berliner, contributed by his descendants.
John Secrist Collection. Comprises 2,800 commercial classical music releases, primarily operatic, from 1902-1925, including many rarities.
Berger Collection. Another collection of extremely rare operatic recordings recently acquired by the Library. It includes at least 200 extremely rare operatic recordings from pre-Revolutionary Russia, dating from about 1901-1915. Many feature members of the Imperial Russian Opera.
U. S. Marine Corps Combat Records. About 2500 recordings made between 1943-1945 from Guam, Okinawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and other locations in the Pacific. Interviews with men returning from combat and other eyewitness descriptions of action.
Valburn Collection. Nearly every commercial record by composer and band leader Duke Ellington. The collection includes published and unpublished performances. Artists' collections. Recording artists whose private collections have come to the Library include Serge Rachmaninoff, Rosa Ponselle, Geraldine Farrar, Sigrid Onegin, Sigmund Romberg, Alma Gluck, Helen Traubel, Arnold Schoenberg, George Gershwin and others.
House of Representatives debates. In 1979 the House of Representatives began to record its proceedings on audio and videotape. The Library holds copies of House audio proceedings held from February 2, 1979 through December 20, 1985. Later holdings, on videotape, are available through the Motion Picture and Television Reading Room.
Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature. Several thousand recordings of authors reading their own works in the recording studios and Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress are indexed in the publication Literary Recordings, as well as in the Library's computer catalogs and in the uncataloged recording index in the Recorded Sound Reference Center.
Weaknesses/Exclusions
As previously stated, because there was no U.S. Copyright Law covering sound recordings until 1972, the Library's initial collection was developed solely through gifts from individuals and corporations. Private collectors have donated thousands of recordings. While this is a strength, it is an another way a weakness, because the collection tends to reflect what has been given to it. It may be very strong in certain areas, such as Pre-Revolutionary Russian discs or Duke Ellington, and yet deficient in other areas.
The collection is weak in small, independent record labels; commercial ethnic music; and selections of foreign music in general outside of the Western music tradition.
