• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

My TechDecisions

  • Best of Tech Decisions
  • Topics
    • Video
    • Audio
    • Mobility
    • Unified Communications
    • IT Infrastructure
    • Network Security
    • Physical Security
    • Facility
    • Compliance
  • RFP Resources
  • Resources
  • Podcasts
  • Project of the Week
  • About Us
    SEARCH
IT Infrastructure, Project of the Week

Curtis Institute of Music Digital Music Migration and Archival

May 12, 2017 TechDecisions Staff Leave a Comment

The Curtis Institute of Music’s collection of audio and visual files is vast, and rapidly expanding. There are about 100 concerts in the student recital series alone, plus orchestra concerts, operas, masterclasses, and tour performances each year. Each student recital needs to be recorded and cataloged for future reference. Audio files can range from 100-300MB and video files from 1-8GB.

The Tech Decision

While the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Penn. had already taken steps towards migrating its huge collection of recordings from tape cassettes to CDs, the accelerated rate of format change proved difficult to keep up with, and Curtis began to look towards a better long-term storage solution.

CD copies of recordings from as recently as 2002 are starting to decay, and some files are beginning to become corrupted. What’s more, the Library is physically running out of room to store all of the CD copies.

“We have a couple of thousand CDs and DVDs just of student recitals” says Molly O’Brien, Media and Metadata Librarian at the Curtis Institute of Music. “Sometimes CDs and DVDs can go missing, but with a digital copy, that can’t happen. Many of our students are actually quite wary of using CD copies because these days they expect to be dealing with files streamed over the Internet. The quality of sound on a CD is not as good as the master .wav file.”

Although some of the archive’s records will be public information, Curtis needed a long-term storage solution that would provide different levels of access. For example, student recitals will not be available to the public as they are subject to copyright issues, and are primarily used as a learning tool for students and faculty. In addition, the Institute will also be ingesting institutional records, which can be accessed by certain people within the Institute’s administration.

The Solution

The Curtis Institute of Music opted for the Cloud Edition of Preservica.

“We’re a small institution with shared IT amongst other organizations – we made the financial decision not to purchase a server,” says Barbara Benedett, Digital Archivist at the Curtis Institute of Music. “Through Preservica, we’re able to use Amazon Web Services which is ideal for us because it enables streaming. Most of the other platforms don’t do that, or they aren’t set up to deal with as much audio and video as we have.”

Preservica’s Cloud Edition is a comprehensive, fully cloud-hosted active preservation and public access solution. It is ideal for small to mid-sized organizations looking for a complete out-of-the-box preservation solution that does not require any local IT resources or servers. Using Preservica Cloud Edition the administrator can control who can see and use specific content, so they are only accessible by the intended audiences.

“In addition, Preservica works together with our ArchivesSpace catalogue software to create a user friendly, seamless archives management tool. This makes everything much easier to find, so staff and students can search and explore the collection themselves,” says O’Brien.

The Impact

“Curtis’ audio department does all of the recordings for the recitals and performances,” says Benedett. “We’re hoping to take a lot of work off their hands by eliminating the student requests that are going to them. Once we can start ingesting recitals, students can browse the access portal we have set up with Preservica and find what they need.”

Preservica’s digital preservation and access technology will enable Curtis’ Library and Archives to become much more productive. “If staff are putting together a collection, they can just login to Preservica online to access it,” says O’Brien.

“Moving away from CDs towards streaming will have a huge benefit for Curtis,” says Benedett. “With Preservica, we’ll be able to offer students and staff a much more efficient system where they can access files quickly, easily, and securely.”

If you enjoyed this article and want to receive more valuable industry content like this, click here to sign up for our digital newsletters!

Tagged With: Cloud, Software, Storage

Related Content:

  • Cloud, SASE, Aryaka How the Cloud is Redefining Media Production and…
  • URI catchbox 1 Catchbox Plus: The Mic Solution That Finally Gave…
  • Software License Spending, SaaS, cloud apps Your Guide to Choosing the Best Cloud Security…
  • IT Budget 2025 Budgeting Tips for IT Pros/CIOs in 2025

Free downloadable guide you may like:

  • Practical Design Guide for Office SpacesPractical Design Guide for Office Spaces

    Recent Gartner research shows that workers prefer to return to the office for in-person meetings for relevant milestones, as well as for face-to-face time with co-workers. When designing the office spaces — and meeting spaces in particular — enabling that connection between co-workers is crucial. But introducing the right collaboration technology in meeting spaces can […]

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Downloads

Practical Design Guide for Office Spaces
Practical Design Guide for Office Spaces

Recent Gartner research shows that workers prefer to return to the office for in-person meetings for relevant milestones, as well as for face-to-fa...

New Camera Can Transform Your Live Production Workflow
New Camera System Can Transform Your Live Production Workflow

Sony's HXC-FZ90 studio camera system combines flexibility and exceptional image quality with entry-level pricing.

Creating Great User Experience and Ultimate Flexibility with Clickshare

Working and collaborating in any office environment today should be meaningful, as workers today go to office for very specific reasons. When desig...

View All Downloads

Would you like your latest project featured on TechDecisions as Project of the Week?

Apply Today!

More from Our Sister Publications

Get the latest news about AV integrators and Security installers from our sister publications:

Commercial IntegratorSecurity Sales

AV-iQ

Footer

TechDecisions

  • Home
  • Welcome to TechDecisions
  • Contact Us
  • Comment Guidelines
  • RSS Feeds
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Linkedin

Free Technology Guides

FREE Downloadable resources from TechDecisions provide timely insight into the issues that IT, A/V, and Security end-users, managers, and decision makers are facing in commercial, corporate, education, institutional, and other vertical markets

View all Guides
TD Project of the Week

Get your latest project featured on TechDecisions Project of the Week. Submit your work once and it will be eligible for all upcoming weeks.

Enter Today!
Emerald Logo
ABOUTCAREERSAUTHORIZED SERVICE PROVIDERSYour Privacy ChoicesTERMS OF USEPRIVACY POLICY

© 2025 Emerald X, LLC. All rights reserved.