World's Largest Library Picks 50 Recordings to Preserve First
Taking a first step to preserve a legacy of more than a century of American recordings, the Library of Congress has started its registry. Which musical pieces will accompany "I Have a Dream" and FDR's fireside chats?

The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and the world's largest library.  Its collections contain more than 126 million items -- including some 2.6 million sound recordings (more than 500,000 LPs; 450,000 78-rpm discs; more than 500,000 unpublished discs, 200,000 compact discs; 175,000 tape reels; 150,000 45-rpm discs; and 100,000 cassette).

The National Recording Preservation Act of 2000 made the Library responsible for selecting recordings annually that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Their first list of 50 is predominantly musical and includes:

Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" (1942)
Ray Charles' "What'd I Say," parts 1 & 2 (1959)
Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" (1939)
Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" (1944)
Les Paul & Mary Ford's "How High the Moon" (1951)
The first network radio broadcast of "Grand Ole Opry" (1939)

Other recordings feature Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Enrico Caruso, Elvis Presley, Duke Ellington and Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five.

Nominations for the registry were garnered from members of the public and from the National Recording Preservation Board, which is composed of leaders in the fields of music, recorded sound, and preservation.

Librarian of Congress James Billington described the challenge of selecting only 50 significant recordings as "formidable." He pointed out that the Congress didn't want "another Grammy Awards or 'best of' list," but rather a celebration of "the richness and variety of our audio legacy." The first selections for the registry include important firsts in the history of recording in America: technical, musical, and cultural achievements.

William Ivey was named chairman of the board of directors of the National Recording Preservation Foundation, the nonprofit corporation created by the Preservation Act to promote and ensure the preservation and public accessibility of the nation's sound recording heritage. Ivey, past chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, is presently Branscomb Scholar at Vanderbilt University.

Read the entire list of 50 recordings

Link to the Library of Congress announcement

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Among the unusual formats in the Library's collection are wires, instantaneous discs, cylinders, music box discs, rolls, bands, dictabelts, and Memovox discs. The collection includes most musical genres with particular strengths in opera, chamber music, folk, jazz, musical theater, popular, and classical music.

There are more radio broadcasts (more than 500,000) preserved in the Library of Congress than in any other library or archives in the United States. The audio collections include NBC radio shows from 1933 to 1971 on 150,000 sixteen-inch lacquer discs; the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service collection of more than 200,000 discs of programs broadcast to America's armed forces from 1942 to the early 1990s; thousands of field recordings of Native Americans, ex-slaves, immigrants, urban voices and rural music; near- complete inventories of many commercial labels acquired through copyright deposit.

Explore the Library of Congress recording collection