Eclectic Artistic Treasures on Mt. Auburn Street

Archibald MacLeish and Theodore Roethke—gained widespread attention.

And soon, other record companies followed suit.

Although the Harvard Vocarium did not outlast its creator’s retirement, Share says that Packard’s “pioneering vision”—using novel technology to enjoy and study literature as a “living voice”—set a bold example for the possibilities of combining technology with an art form.

This year, the Harvard Vocarium record label was honored by being selected one of only fifty inductees to the inaugural National Recording Registry.

Created by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, the National Recording Registry was established “to maintain and preserve sound recordings that are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

The goals of Librarian of Congress James H. Billington in crafting the list are very similar to those of Packard.

“We have a great responsibility ahead of us: to assure the preservation and accessibility of over 100 years of recorded sound,” Bilard said two years ago at the National Recording Presevation Board’s first meeting. “The sounds of our times, and those of the 20th century, will be experienced first-hand by generations to come when we accomplish this important goal.”

The National Recording Registry begins at a time of heightened concern for the future of near-obsolete and rare forms of media.

In addition to housing a broad variety of printed poetry, the Woodberry Poetry Room serves as a repository for the spoken word. Harvard hosts numerous poetry readings each year, many of which are recorded and stored for posterity in Lamont—“a permanent record of these occasions,” according to Fearrington Libriarian of Houghton Library William P. Stoneman.

“You hate to make the decision that a person is not worth recording,” Stoneman says. “After all, it’s difficult to predict the future significance of a recording. So Harvard tries to record it all.”