BY NELSON PAVLOSKY

In print | Published March 17, 2005

How well do we take care of our past at Swarthmore College? Some pieces of our past are preserved well, in places like the Friends Historical Library, or the archives of The Phoenix.

But what was Nirvana like when they played at Olde Club, before they were famous? If there are tapes of their show still available on campus, does anybody know where they are? If they’re only available on old audio tapes, how long will they last? Will we still have tape players which can play them in 10 years?

We live in a society where we can capture life in a level of detail and realism which would have been unimaginable a century ago. But all too often we neglect to exercise this power, and when we do, we don’t take the effort to maintain the pieces of our history which we have preserved or to make it available to the public. When Howard Dean gave a speech at Swarthmore, you can be sure that it was recorded. But how useful is that tape if it just sits on a shelf in a library somewhere, or worse, only exists in a private collection? And how much foresight are we displaying if it’s only saved in a format that will degrade and waste away? Not much.

That’s why events at Swarthmore should be recorded and posted online, for people to share and preserve for posterity. We know that cameras and sound equipment exist and are available through Media Services, the Swarthmore College Computing Society and other individuals and organizations. Although there is not currently an obvious source of copious amounts of Web space on campus, there are off-campus sites like the Internet Archive (Archive.org), which encourages people to upload anything that they are willing to freely share with the world. It would not take much to post audio or video clips to Archive.org. Given our less-than-speedy Internet connection, off-campus space is undesirable for the purpose of making materials available to Swarthmore students, but there are interim solutions if we’re not willing or able to provide on-campus Web space for this noble goal. This media could be shared on local peer-to-peer networks like Direct Connect until sufficient demand arises for content to be officially hosted here.

It’s understandable that performers might object to the college (or its students) recording their acts and then posting the shows online. However, when an artist makes it publicly known that they support recording and sharing of their shows online, it’s criminal to fail to take them up on the offer. They Might Be Giants played on campus recently, and they actively encourage people to share their live concerts on sites like etree.org. Was this done? If not, why not? Isn’t this an excellent chance to get the name of Swarthmore out there? It’s free advertising, of a kind that is highly relevant to college applicants.

Perhaps more importantly, why don’t we make more of an effort to make available performances of our student orchestras and choruses? If they play classical music that is in the public domain, what’s stopping us from publishing our music to the universe? Although the students own the copyright to the performance itself, it’s within their power to grant permission to the school to post the performance online, if we dedicate ourselves to this project as a community. Similarly, we should be able to tape and publish the performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, although we may have problems getting permission from the Beckett estate to share a production of Waiting for Godot. We should also have no problem capturing traditions like the Valentine’s Day Massacre or Screw Your Roommate, although people might object to being taped at the less decorous Sager party.

We need to make a commitment to recording and preserving both newsworthy events and more mundane activities at Swarthmore College. Not every event that happens needs to be captured, but we should have a good enough sample that those who come after us will be able to get a clear picture of what life was like here around the turn of the millennium. Making this commitment will even have short-term benefits; it will allow us to show prospective students what life is like at Swarthmore College right now, and help them decide whether they want to become part of our rich history.

Nelson Pavlosky is a junior. You can reach him at npavlos1@swarthmore.edu.

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