Top of page

Film, Video Project IRENE: Analyzing Images to Digitize Sound on Historic Audio Recordings

Event video

Transcript: TEXT

About this Item

Title

  • Project IRENE: Analyzing Images to Digitize Sound on Historic Audio Recordings

Summary

  • This lecture describes the IRENE technology, how the method enables the reconstruction of sound from the digital images, and the innovations and challenges relevant to scaling this method for working with thousands of cylinders. The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley is home to nearly 3,000 20th-century ethnographic field recordings that record Native Californians singing and speaking in native languages. These recordings are invaluable to contemporary linguists and community members, but are difficult to access as they were recorded on a fragile, often physically compromised medium: the wax cylinder. A three-year project is underway to use a method collaboratively developed by the Library of Congress and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to recover the audio on these recordings. The method, called IRENE (Image, Reconstruct, Erase Noise, Etc.), captures the audio information non-invasively through high resolution, three dimensional imaging of the grooved cylinder surface.

Names

  • Library of Congress
  • Library of Congress. Preservation Directorate, sponsoring body

Created / Published

  • Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress, 2016-10-04.

Headings

  • -  Anthropology, project IRENE, innovation, cylinders
  • -  Culture, Folklife
  • -  Science, Technology

Notes

  • -  Classification: Technology.
  • -  Olivia Dill.
  • -  Recorded on 2016-10-04.
  • -  Librarians, Archivists.
  • -  Researchers.

Medium

  • 1 online resource

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • 2021690309

Online Format

  • video
  • image
  • online text

Additional Metadata Formats

Rights & Access

While the Library of Congress created most of the videos in this collection, they include copyrighted materials that the Library has permission from rightsholders to present.  Rights assessment is your responsibility.  The written permission of the copyright owners in materials not in the public domain is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. There may also be content that is protected under the copyright or neighboring-rights laws of other nations.  Permissions may additionally be required from holders of other rights (such as publicity and/or privacy rights). Whenever possible, we provide information that we have about copyright owners and related matters in the catalog records, finding aids and other texts that accompany collections. However, the information we have may not be accurate or complete.

More about Copyright and other Restrictions

For guidance about compiling full citations consult Citing Primary Sources.

Credit Line: Library of Congress

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Library Of Congress, and Sponsoring Body Library Of Congress. Preservation Directorate. Project IRENE: Analyzing Images to Digitize Sound on Historic Audio Recordings. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, -10-04, 2016. Video. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021690309/.

APA citation style:

Library Of Congress & Library Of Congress. Preservation Directorate, S. B. (2016) Project IRENE: Analyzing Images to Digitize Sound on Historic Audio Recordings. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, -10-04. [Video] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2021690309/.

MLA citation style:

Library Of Congress, and Sponsoring Body Library Of Congress. Preservation Directorate. Project IRENE: Analyzing Images to Digitize Sound on Historic Audio Recordings. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, -10-04, 2016. Video. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2021690309/>.