Like Chris B, I am busy dealing with old tape collections and have a few awaiting my attention, including a number of folk club collections on both cassette and quarter inch. To that end I've spent a chunk of money setting up a transfer bay which will transfer from all domestic quarter inch formats and all cassette dolby types to digital.

Two years ago, the Traditional Song Forum proposed a project, called 'Voices In The Attic' to which my name is notionally attached but I've yet to put any serious effort into tracking down more recordings, thus increasing the size of the task which is already pending. Some project partners would be welcome.

It would be nice if all the old recordings could be made available, BBC folk programmes, club recordings, field recordings, etc. but the task would be enormous and would bring lots of thorny copyright issues with it. The BBC Archives are very helpful if approached in the right way but there are other problems like performers not wanting old, possibly sub-standard club performances being in the public domain etc.

Chris B has made some recordings available online (applause) but there is a limit to what can be hosted by those of us willing to devote time and fork out from our own pockets for storage etc. My own audio archives are in excess of 2 Terabytes - considerably less in mp3 format of course but it still represents a considerable effort to get it reformatted and uploaded somewhere. Also, there is a proportion of it that will be of little interest to the majority and maybe of no interest at all.

Since the VitA proposal was raised I've been wondering how to approach the problem of accessibility and it occurs to me that in the absence of a national solution brokered by the British Library or the EFDSS who might have the will if not the resources (and I'm talking copyright here, not technology), there might be a middle way. That would be to club together and set up an online database of recordings so at least we know what exists and who's got it. I'm not saying that those who have the recordings will automatically make them available to anyone who asks - I've certainly no wish to be flooded out with requests for copies when I'm busy getting on with my own life, but over a period of time, mp3s could be disseminated and passed around from those who have them to those who need them and without huge violations of the copyright laws.

Does anybody think this is a good idea?

Just to demonstrate what might be ultimately available I'll send a link to the zip file of the Paul Graney Memorial Archive rough catalogue to any interested parties if they send an email request to my mudcat handle followed by @imailbox.com