OK, a worked example crossed my desk this morning - gypsy jazz rather than folk music, but the principle is the same... one of my audience recordings is included in this new thread on the "Djangobooks" forum: WASO Live recordings archive ... to me it was just a live recording of a gig I attended, to the archive custodian it is "definitely one of my favorite recordings of WASO ever". So I cannot judge it in the context that they do, just have to figure out if it meets my thresholds for (1) artist "notability", (2) is the technical quality adequate, (3) was it a "good performance" (meaning, not an off night), and (4) is it a useful "add" to what is available elsewhere (not too much duplication). In this case it passes all 4 tests (to my mind) and somebody else values it down the track. Basically the "future historian" will take whatever is put out there, presuming that it is accessible of course and not closed off at the British Library or similar, and form their judgement according to their world view, which requires a range of material from which to be formed... In other words, we save and archive whatever is available, according to the criteria above at least.

- Tony