I have not been involved in this thread and it is typical of some of the backbiting that goes on on this forum that someone should use it to carry on a far-too-log vendetta
We dontaed our collection to the (then) British Institute of Recorded Sound later to become National Sound Archive
The music director then, Lucy Duran, welcomed our donation with open arms and, thanks to her efforts, the then mainly musicological holdings expanded to include British traditional music
Pat and I, along wit others, put in some effort to turn that collection into a national Folk Archive, without too much success.
While we were delighted with the Bright Golden Store project, we are still somewhat peeved that our own collection lies largely locked away and, as far as I can mke out inaccessible to the public
I believe this is not the fault of the NSA but on lack of funds stemming from the fact that Folk Song and Music is not as valued in Britain as it is elsewhere
We now live in Clare on the West Coast of Ireland
When we approached our County Library five years ago and asked them did they have any use for our Clare recordings, they immediately appointed two librarians to work on the collection and, after two years, put them on line HERE and HERE
We have just had confirmed that Limerick University has agreed to take the rest of our collection and open a website dedicated to making out Traveller and (hopefully) English and Scots material accessible
While its a shame that we have to tale our English recordings out of the contry to make them accessible, it's a bit of a relief to learn that, at long last, the twenty-years worth of out Walter Pardon recordings might, at long last see the light of day
Jim Carroll