Storing audio for long, long periods of time isn’t as easy as we once thought. For example, some storage facilities in the UK once had to deal with something called “tape rot.” A strange mold–a little white dust–contaminated and destroyed thousands and thousands of kilometres of magnetic audio and videotape. It was so virulent that if you get a speck on your finger from a contaminated tape and touch another tape, you’ve just pooched it.
It became so bad that archives and libraries and other places where tape is stored are implementing measures that wouldn’t be out of place in a Level 5 containment lab. To this day, no one is certain where this mold originated, but Britain’s damp weather certainly didn’t help.
More next time.
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