The Library of Congress maintains a collection of ~10,000 wax cylinders containing ethnographic field recordings in the American Folk Life Center. Unfortunately, these cylinders, which are the first commercialized recorded sound carriers, can present several conditions issues including cracking and exudation. We are taking a multi-pronged approach to identify changes resulting from aging as well as guide the continued preservation of these materials. To this end, we have performed a detailed chemical analysis of cylinders and fragments from our collection as well as recreating wax compositions guided by both primary literature and chemical analyses. This talk will detail and discuss the results of these analyses.<br/>Results indicate that the inorganic composition of our wax cylinders is more complex than expected based on formulations outlined in primary literature sources while the organic composition appears consistent with reported formulations. Comparisons of the recreated and period materials found them to be remarkably similar, suggesting that the compositions are stable rather than chemically degrading. Physical analyses to examine the effect of temperature and humidity indicated that the materials are largely unaffected by humidity but have a high coefficient of thermal expansion, providing a plausible source of the observed cracking. As a result of these findings, notable changes in the handling of the cylinder collection have been made at the Library of Congress.

Broken cylinders: Uncovering the nature of damage to early wax cylinder audio recordings during storage

254th National Meeting (2017)

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