Field Museum Rescues ''Endangered'' Recordings; Museum preserves audio descriptions of prized Pacific collection recorded on sonobands, an ''endangered species'' of information technology.

CHICAGO -- In 1958, a Field Museum curator sat down with Captain A. Fuller to record more than 100 hours of comprehensive information about the 6,622 artifacts in Fuller's Pacific collection that had been acquired over the previous half century. They used a Walkie RecordAll, then a state-of-the-art recording device, and write-able media tapes called sonobands. Today, the Museum is having these recordings digitized, which is proving to be quite a challenge.

Much as eight-track cassettes have been relegated to the technological dustbin, the Walkie RecordAll and the sonoband medium on which the device etched sounds fell out of use in the 1970s. Today this technology is as imperiled as an endangered species, such as the pandas on display at the Museum. In fact, the full-service archival lab that the Museum contracted to preserve the recordings did not possess a machine of this type.

In the 1950s and 60s, the boxy, battery-powered machines were commonly used in the legal profession and by the Chicago Police Department to make legal recordings in criminal cases. Also, they were advertised as a way to secretly record conversations.

Fortunately, The Field Museum had kept the two Walkie RecordAll machines used for the Fuller recording sessions. It has loaned these semi-functioning devices to the contractor, The Cutting Corporation, an audio production facility with a renowned sound preservation laboratory in Bethesda, Md. After studying and restoring the Museum's Walkie RecordAll machines, The Cutting Corporation had to re-engineer its own Walkie RecordAll machine.

The most challenging part of preserving these recordings digitally is that the sonobands have become brittle over time. As a result, the grooves on the recordings have altered, making tracking difficult but achievable. Thus, through creative engineering, the voices describing the masks and skulls, weapons and tools, idols and boomerangs, will be saved.

Digitizing the descriptions of the collection that were so painstakingly recorded in 1958 will not just preserve Fuller's voice but also give researchers new perspectives on individual pieces and the significance of the Fuller collection, overall.

Objects come from almost every corner of the Micronesia and Polynesia, including Australia, Hawaii, Easter Islands, and New Guinea.

Large number of digital images available