Nov 5, 2007 2:54 PM

Library of Congress Transcription Room

The U.S. Library of Congress has selected six Millennia LOC archiving systems for its new National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC) in Culpeper, Va. The LOC units are installed in each of the Library's state-of-the-art transcription rooms, which are scheduled to go online during the first quarter of 2008.

The Millennia LOC archiving systems will provide analog preamplification and equalization for the Library's entire collection of LPs, 78's, 16-inch transcriptions, Edison Cylinders, acoustics and other historic electro-mechanical formats, estimated at nearly two million units.

The LOC archiving system is designed to work faithfully with any contemporary or historic disk or cylinder format, so that it will provide an acoustically invisible signal path as the United States' priceless audio treasures are digitized for posterity. The LOC was chosen for this task due to its 100-volt all-discrete mastering-grade EQ amplifiers and Millennia's reputation for ultra-pristine high-gain paths.

“The technologies being implemented at the NAVCC are unprecedented in scale and unmatched in their capabilities anywhere else in the world”, says NAVCC director Greg Lukow. “Not only will these technologies enable exponential increases in the production of high-quality preservation copies of materials that are deteriorating in their current formats, but they will provide researchers with better, faster access to more of these materials in the future.”

Library of Congress Transcription Unit; Millennia custom phono preamps are in each room

The new NAVCC archiving facility spans 45 acres, employs 90 miles of shelves, hosts nearly 6 million pieces of AV materials along with enormous rooms crammed full of nearly every known playback machine. The archives include 124 temperature-controlled nitrate film vaults, a commercial film development lab, and one wing dedicated to cleaning and restoration.

This complex of archives and technology is housed in nearly one-half million square feet of endless catacombs that are mostly underground beneath Pony Mountain in Culpeper. The facility was built with private funds from David Packard (son of the Hewlett-Packard founder)— the largest private gift ever to the U.S. legislative branch.

The NAVCC, besides being the world's largest and most comprehensive collection of moving images and sound recordings, will also reportedly be the largest end-user of hard disk drives on the planet, surpassing Google. The Library of Congress no longer talks in terms of gigabytes, nor even terabytes; now it's petabytes per year.

For more information, visit www.mil-media.com, www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/ and www.loc.gov/rr/record.

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