The place where I work has close to 600 reel to reel tapes and that many cassettes that we will be converting to digital recordings. These are live recordings of primarily tradtional music. There is some debate about whether they should be saved on hard drives, CDs, or DVDs. They will be kept in an archive for use of the public, researchers, or whoever may be inclined. Some thought is being given to making the music archive available over the internet. I am interested in any thoughts the technically inclined may have about this preservation project and any suggestions. One specific question to start is; in the initial recording from analog to digital can the sound waves be converted in the computer by means of software or must the sound pass through a DAT recorder? If it can be converted by software, which software is best? Also is there database software that is best suited to cataloging music information?