National Recording Preservation Foundation

09/23/2026

We're happy to join the American Folklife Center in celebrating the Alive in Many Hands exhibit, which commemorates the Center's 50th Anniversary. The AFC preserves and interprets many incredible audio and audiovisual collections, some of which are featured in the exhibit. Highly recommended to visit if you are visiting DC and able to stop by the Library! 🥳

New exhibit explores the legacy of the American Folklife Center on its 50th anniversary.

09/09/2026

08/12/2026

From the Internet Archive: insights on why it's important to preserve audio from 78s

08/12/2026

Great opportunity to follow up on ARSC's recent conference presentations, or catch the ones you missed! 🙌

ARSC is pleased to announce the online availability of video recordings of presentations at ARSC's 60th Annual Conference in Memphis, Tennessee in May 2026 on ARSC's Aviary Site.

https://arsc.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3706

Selected video recordings are fully public and all others may be accessed by the public for a limited duration. ARSC members enjoy unlimited access to all ARSC Conference recordings, 1977 to present!

Like what you hear? Join ARSC to gain access to more recordings and our community of record collectors, archivists, and researchers in recorded sound.

08/06/2026

Audio reformatting isn’t just about moving sound from one format to another.

When an audio engineer performs a fully attended transfer, they are listening, documenting, and capturing the recording as faithfully as possible—turning that “one box of recordings” into so much more:

4 days of transfer
23:32:03.9 hours of content
23 preservation files
23 rows of documentation identifying speakers across panel discussions, speeches, and remarks
38 GB of preserved audio

And all of that information helps clients make more informed decisions about the future preservation of their audio collections!

08/06/2026

AFC Announces fellowship recipients. Congratulations!

The American Folklife Center is proud to announce the 2026 recipients of three AFC award/fellowship programs: the Gerald E. and Corinne L. Parsons Fund Award, the Henry Reed Award, and the Artists in Resonance Fellowship. They are Emily Hilliard and Fidel GomezTorres (Parsons Award), Elsa Howell & the Blackbird Pie Stringband (Reed Award), and Jason Cade (Artists in Resonance). Congratulations to this year's recipients! At the link below, learn more about these innovative projects and the awards/fellowship programs.

https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2026/08/announcing-the-recipients-of-the-american-folklife-centers-2026-fellowships-and-awards/?loclr=fbafc

07/23/2026

Did you know the oldest known recordings of humpback whale songs were made using office dictation equipment back in 1949? 🐋🎧 This month's episode of Sound Files tells the story of how archivists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution raised new interest in these recordings, and how digitization and audio restoration experts helped to identify that the "fish noises" on the discs were actually whale songs.

Tune in to learn how listening to the past helps us understand the ocean, then and now.

Listen here: https://www.recordingpreservation.org/features/2026/soundfiles-preserving-oldest-whalesong-recordings

06/26/2026

NEWS: The Library of Congress recently acquired the manuscripts, papers, photographs and sound recordings of songwriter Doc Pomus, who was responsible for such hits as “This Magic Moment,” “Viva Las Vegas,” and “Save the Last Dance for Me.”
https://newsroom.loc.gov/news/library-of-congress-acquires-manuscripts--papers-and-recordings-of-rock---roll-hall-of-famer-doc-pom/s/111ba6b3-a091-4b54-9ae3-34c9f6a9fad7?loclr=fbloc

06/23/2026

📢 NRPF's 2026 preservation grant cycle is open! Libraries, archives & collecting nonprofits can apply for $5K–$10K to digitize and preserve at-risk audio collections. Deadline: July 31, 2026. 🔗 https://www.recordingpreservation.org/programs/grants/2026-call-for-proposals/

06/15/2026

The Spirit of Black Music | This playlist celebrates the richness and diversity of music created by our Black , showing that it spans every genre and defies any single definition. 🎶✨
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1QBvk49dgyhIms7PVt8pLv?si=42852ff7990a473c