| Recordings of wild animals were first made in the Palearctic in 1900, in the Nearctic in 1929, in Antarctica in 1934, in Asia in 1937, and in the Neotropics in the 1940s. However, systematic collecting did not begin until the 1950s. Collections of animal sound recordings serve many uses in education, entertainment, science and nature conservation. In recent years, technological developments have transformed the ways in which sounds can be sampled, stored and accessed. Now the largest collections between them hold altogether around 0.5 million recordings with their associated data. The functioning of a major archive will be described with reference to the British Library Sound Archive. Preserving large collections for the long term is a primary concern in... |
