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About the Gramophone project
Gramophone is a project of the Swiss National Sound Archives, which aims to safeguard and enhance a number of historical sound recordings (on cylinders and 78rpm records) preserved in the archives of the Phonotheque.
On this page, a first selection of sound documents of the Gramophone project is brought to the public as "free access". These are cylinders and 78rpm records that, in accordance with the Swiss laws, belong to the public domain and can therefore be published online. More than 500 historical sound documents listenable now!
The task of safeguarding
The Swiss National Sound Archives are an international center of excellence for the preservation of sound recordings. In the context of the Gramophone project, historical sound documents (on cylinders and 78rpm records) can be safeguarded only thanks to the highly specialized know-how of the Phonotheque. The shape of the cylinders and the 78rpm discs is carefully analyzed; the documents are then conditioned according to their needs; the technical department produces digital copies of the documents and when needed proceeds with a restoration of the sound; the label is scanned; the contents are documented in detail. Finally, the original sound documents are preserved in the physical archives and the digital copies of the sound recordings in the respective digital archives. [more]
