Committees

AES Historical Committee Report 2005-09-29

AES Historical Committee Report
for the Board of Governors Meeting at the
119th Convention, New York, 2005-10-11

The Historical Committee will hold an open meeting during this Convention, on Sunday, Oct 9, at 10...12, in Javits Center, Room 2 D02. It will be chaired by HC Chair Jay McKnight, who will attend the Governors' meeting to answer any questions you may have about the HC activities. You are all welcome to attend the Historical Committee meeting. We will discuss the activities reported below.

The presently active AES Historical Committee projects [as numbered in our Guidelines] are as follows:

5 [Organize and maintain an archive relating to the history of the Audio Engineering Society itself.]

  • Project leader Roger Furness had said that he would be able to devote time to organizing and cataloging the history of the AES itself. It has not happened yet.

8 [Encourage each Local Section and each Convention Committee to organize an appropriate session on the history of audio  engineering, or a display on an appropriate historical subject. When requested, provide information to help them to do so.]

  • There will be seven  Historical Events at this 119th Convention;  times and titles are given at http://www.aes.org/events/119/historical/ .
  • Planning for Historical Events at future Conventions has not yet begun.
9 [Create and operate two AES HC email reflectors: a Steering Committee Reflector for discussions of purely administrative matters of the Committee; and a general Historical Reflector for discussions of actual historical matters.]
  • Join our reflector. The email reflector continues on the "recordist.com" server, with thanks to David Josephson.
10 [Create an AES HC web site on which to publish the information compiled in the following sections.]
  • We continue to upgrade and add to our website . The obituary index is now beginning to link directly to the obituaries in the Journal themselves.
11 [Create a directory of museums, libraries, archives, and private collections that contain historic audio equipment or documents about the history of audio engineering.]
  • The project leader,  Myles Cochran Davis, continues to review and annotate the links on our website, which may be seen here. He will be contacting the museums in order to establish better coordination with the AES HC.
13 [Record oral histories (sound only, sound with video, and/or sound with still photographs) of important figures in the  history of audio engineering.]
  • We have prepared a "sampler" interview DVD at Marshall Buck's request, which we will distribute to BoG members and AES officers at this convention.
  • Irv Joel plans to record more interviews during this Convention. We continue to solicit your suggestions both for interviewers and for further interviewees, especially for countries outside of the US.
  • The project continues with Irv Joel having recorded several more new interviews in Barcelona. A complete list of interviews completed, and their dates, and interviews proposed,  is now available. We have now begun editing some of the interviews into a form that we can make available. We are also transcribing a few of the interviews.  But our emphasis is still on recording new interviews.
14  [Collect, write, publish, and otherwise disseminate accurate historical information about the field of audio engineering.]
  • The several projects described in the previous report are continuing.
     
Jay McKnight, Chair
AES Historical Committee

Draft report written on  2005-09-29, --29 15,

AES - Audio Engineering Society