Friday, October 7, 2016

Pacifica Radio Archives are being sold from storage ? Why ?


these quotes below are reposted from a NY Pacifica station focused site:


http://wbai-nowthen.blogspot.com/      

Chris Anderson's  sept 28  2016 post  there says:   


re PACIFICA ARCHIVES tapes and storage:

“Here's a follow-up on the e-bay sale of Pacifica tapes. It does not solve the mystery, but it contains a few details. My source is an informed source who wishes to remain anonymous. This is what I was told:

“  The storage unit is an old one, located in Rosemead CA, not visited in years, and never inventoried. Pacifica's National office was paying the bill, not PRA [Pacifica Radio Archives] , because this was not part of the $1,900 monthly PRA budget for the 4 units it does pay for. This is not PRA's fault, it's the National office having ignored invoices, alerts, warnings, etc. Understandably, the seller wants to make a profit as this is his business.

“Let's hope that someone can negotiate with him to donate it to a secure place with trustworthy custodians. It is highly doubtful that Pacifica can afford to buy these tapes back or—if reacquired—what it will do with them. The inventory is "several thousand tapes" and thousands of folios. 


"Most of the latter are digitized and available online for free at archive.org, but there are a number of sets PRA never found, so it would be valuable to review what is there and add any of the missing ones (mostly WBAI 1963-1967).  Sounds like a good thing for crowd funding or a rescue emergency grant.”

then a commentator wrote :

” The stupid thing is that these tapes could bring in money as materiel for writers and other researchers.”


and on Oct 1 2016 same the blog author posted this :

 “The Pacifica Archive tapes currently spotted on e-bay are still the subject of contention. Some are suggesting that the seller—who purchased them from a storage company—hasn't the right to put them up for sale, but Pacifica lost ownership when it failed to meet its contractual rental obligations. Thus the fault lies with the Pacifica National office. 


"Of real concern is the possibility of valuable as yet digitized aural documents becoming lost forever. There is no excuse for such neglect, but it reflects the lack of responsibility that continues to prevail within Pacifica.”





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