The Library of Congress has opened its National Recording Registry with 50 historic recordings:

The choices for the National Recording Registry were announced by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, who appointed William Ivey chairman of a board of directors. The board and the general public will make suggestions, advising Billington on the final choices. Ivey is a country music expert and former head of the National Endowment for the Arts.

The 50 recordings were chosen from proposals by the public and the new board.

...."American music has pretty well transformed the soundscape of the 20th century and it has a special role in the development of American culture and indeed American life," Billington said.

....In setting up the program, Congress specified that recordings must be at least 10 years old.

....Inclusion in the registry will ensure that a digital copy is retained in the library.

Billington emphasized the role of the library in setting standards for preserving sounds and making them publicly accessible.

"We're a very creative society, but our creativity is based on throwaway materials," he said in explaining the Registry's emphasis on conservation efforts. [AP]

The 2002 Registry is here, in chronological order:

1. Edison Exhibition Recordings (Group of three cylinders): "Around the World on the Phonograph"; "The Pattison Waltz"; "Fifth Regiment March." (1888-1889)
A trio of cylinders selected by Edison contemporaries to represent the birth of commercial sound recording-as an industry, as a practical technology, and as a means to preserve music and spoken word.

2. The Jesse Walter Fewkes field recordings of the Passamaquoddy Indians. (1890) Fewkes's cylinder recordings, made in Calais, Maine, are considered to be the first ethnographic recordings made "in the field," as well as the first recordings of Native American music.

3. "Stars and Stripes Forever" Military Band. Berliner Gramophone disc recording. (1897) The first recording of America's favorite march. "The Stars and Stripes Forever!," John Philip Sousa's most famous march, was recorded by the company of the inventor of the 78-rpm gramophone disc, Emile Berliner..

4. Lionel Mapleson cylinder recordings of the Metropolitan Opera. (1900-1903)
In the early 1900s, Lionel Mapleson set up a phonograph in the New York City Metropolitan Opera House to record excerpts of 'live' performances there. These cylinders preserve a special window on the spontaneous artistry of this era and are the only known extant recordings of some performers, including Jean de Reszke.

5. Scott Joplin ragtime compositions on piano rolls. Scott Joplin, piano. (1900s)
Scott Joplin is regarded as the pre-eminent composer of ragtime compositions. Joplin himself performed some of these rags for piano roll sales. These rolls represent the way rags were originally listened to and enjoyed on home player pianos. They are outstanding examples of a less-familiar, nearly-obsolete, sound recording format.

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