IRENE audio preservation at the Northeast Document Conservation Center: Developing workflows and standards for preservation projects that use innovative technology

Abstract

In 2014, the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) began offering the IRENE audio preservation service to libraries, archives and museums. IRENE is an innovative optical scanning technology for digitising grooved audio carriers without using a stylus. Developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Library of Congress, IRENE uses cameras and microscopes to image the grooves at high resolution, and customised software that mimics the motion of the stylus through the grooves in the images to produce an audio file. The multi-step process offers the operator a critical degree of control for addressing the unique characteristics of ‘irregular’ (ie not produced in a controlled, professional environment) grooved recordings often found in archival collections, but also complicates the task of properly documenting the digital provenance of the files it produces. The rapid development of this technology presents the challenge of continually updating workflows and methods, at a rate faster than audio preservation standards and best practices can dictate. This paper provides a case study in developing preservation workflows and standards for projects that use innovative technology, by working from a foundation of established standards and providing transparent documentation of the ways in which IRENE deviates from those standards.